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A woman's thoughts 



ABOUT MEN. 



BY 

MRS. HUGH L. BRINKLEY. 



NEW YORK: 

DERBY BROTHERS. 



A Woman's Thoughts 
ABOUT MEN, 



BY 

Mrs. Hugh L. Brinkley. 



For more than twenty years man has held the mirror up to woman, 
now a woman shall hold the mirror up to man ; let him sec 
himself, perhaps, the spectacle from its very rarity 
will do him good." — Page 4. 



a' 



NEW YORK: 

Derby Brothers, 




1879^ 



r 



■53442^/7 
l?7? 



Copyrighted by Derby Brothers, 
1879. 



Ci0^f¥s;^^f'I'^. 



^» • «> 

Ckapter I. - - - My Subject 

Chapter II. • - - The Dandy 

Chapter IIL .....----- Old Beau 

Chapter IV. Man's Vanity vs. Woman's 

Chapter V. . . . • ^ - . ■ - - Nerves 

Chapter VI. ' Hyprocrisy 

Chapter VII. ..-•-■■ Slang 
Chapter VIII. -.--•- The Heiress Hunter 

Chapter IX. * The Nice Young Man 

Chapter X. The Modern Spoon 

Chapter XI. ••-••- • The General Lover 
Chaptkr XII. .-•--- Piece Meal. Admirers 

Chapter" XIII. • • Imaginative Men 

Chapter XIV. .-.•-- • Grand Lamas 

Chapter XV. . - - • - - ■ Pig-Headed Men 
Chaptek XVI. .-.-.-- The Spoilt Man 
Chapter XVn. ..---• - The Gossip 
Chapter XVIII. . - - . The Slanderer and Braggart 
Chapter XIX. -..--•-■ The Masher 
Chapter XX. - - - • Patent American Champion Caller 
Chapter XXI. ------ Rich Young Bachelors 

Chapter XXIL --..-- - Married Men 

Chapter XXIII. • - The Fast Man 

Chapter XXIV. ..... . The Betting Man 

Chapter XXV. • - - - - - - Business Man 

Chapter XXVI. - - - - - ■ The Pack Horse 

Chapter XXVII. --..-- • - Brokers 
Chapter XXVIII. ..-..- The Politician 

Chapter XXIX. - • - - - - The Men of Brass 

Chapter XXX. Careless Husbands 

Chapter XXXI, - Married Tyrants 

Chapter XXXII. ----- Some Woman's Husband 
Chapter XXXIII. . - . , - Henpecked Husbands 
Chapter XXXIV. ...---.• Fathers 
Chapter XXXV. ..-..- The Careless Father 
Chapter XXXVI. The Coming Man 



Chapter I. 

MY SUBJECT. 

J^OR the last twent}^ years there has been one un- 
failing, unending, infinite, inexhaustible, subject, 
which has been uppermost in books, in newspapers, 
in poems, in plays, and in parlor gossip — the woman 
of the period. 

Poets have sung of her, have fallen at her feet and 
poured their incense at her shrine, enveloping her 
in the fragrant clouds of her own praises ; philoso- 
phers have written of her, have taken her, and, plac- 
ed her under their relentless microscope, and re- 
vealed new and hitherto unsuspected follies ; satir- 
ists have laughed at her, and have forced the world to 
join them in their laugh ; artists have lampooned her ; 
morahsts have anathematized her ; and the poor 
creature has been held responsible for the sins of the 
whole world. 



MY SUBJECT. 



We are told that as the woman is so the men are ; 
we have been solemnly assured that woman moulds 
and forms the man ; we have been oracularly and 
pithily informed that man, mere man, is but the pup- 
pet of the petticoats. 

And, to a certain extent we have been told the 
truth. The influence of woman, as in the form of 
mother's love it is the first, so at first it is the most 
important influence to which man is subjected, just as 
through all life it is the best. But it should be re- 
membered that as the son advances in life the 
mother's influence is lessened in importance, the 
father's manly influence towers up, the male com- 
panion and friend exert their influence and power, till 
finally mother's love and all womanly influence are 
thrown into that back ground where they remain, be- 
coming permanently fixed among the shadows So, 
too, with the daughter, from one year till ten the 
mother is to the daughter all in all, then the girl and 
boy playmates come upon the scene, and the brother 
and the brother's friends ; then the lover enters the 



MY SUBJECT. 



arena and becomes in time the husband, until finally 
the mother's gentle voice is scarcely heard, or heard 
no more, amid the clatter of a masculine world. 

So, while we find in all this " woman of the pe- 
riod " cant much of the truth, we also discover in it 
more of exaggeration, or, rather, while it is in itself 
true, there lies another and a greater truth back of it, 
from which it derives all its signification. This sim- 
ple fact is, that the woman ot the period is but an effect, 
not a cause ; a reflex, and not an original light. She is 
but the legitimate and inevitable result of the man of 
the period. She exists for him, and her existence 
and character are moulded by him. 

According to the books and the popular theory, 
Mary and Julia talk, dress, dance and flirt, and Hen- 
ry and Adolphus are influenced for good or evil, are 
affected for weal or woe, by what Julia says and by 
what Mary wears — by Julia's coquetry and by Mary's 
sentiment. But, in reality, Mary talks and Julia 
dances, Julia dresses and Mary flirts for the one single 
aim of pleasing, and by pleasing, winning, either Adol- 



MY SUBJECT. 



phus or Henry. So that really it is Adolphus who 
is responsible for Mary and Henry who controls the 
character and decides the fate of Julia. 

True, an imprudent speech from Julia's pretty lips 
will linger unpleasantly in Henry's memory, and a 
hasty word from Mary will rankle in the breast of 
Adolphus, but Henry has his profession to help him 
to forget and Adolphus has his business ; they have 
their cigars, their boon companions and their poli- 
tics ; they have their cards and their clubs, all these 
daily and nightly pursuits which modify largely, if 
they do not wholly neutralize, the influence of their 
divinities. 

But Juha has no business, Mary has no profession, 
neither do the girls of the period belong to clubs ; 
they neither smoke nor drink nor play poker ; they 
may laugh at and tease their lovers when they are 
with them to their willful whim's content, but after 
all they are compelled to think about the men much 
more than the men are permitted to think about 
them. 



MY SUBJECT. 



•' Man's love is of man's life a thing apart — 
*Tis woman's whole existence." 

Consequently, deny it as they may, Julia is mould- 
ed by Henry, not Henry by Julia ; Mary is influenced 
by Adolphus, not Adolphus by Mary, to any vital 
extent. 

This being the case, it is evident that much of all 
the cant we read about ^'The Woman of the Period " 
is verbal bosh and bathos — nothing worth unless 
when taken in connection with the man of the 
period. 

But, unfortunately for the enquirers after social 
truth, we cannot read or hear anything worth read- 
ing or hearing about this man of the period. 

He writes books about the girl of the period — but 
no books are written about him. He holds woman 
up to ridicule, but no woman retaliates by turning 
the ridicule upon him. He publishes squibs about 
the mother-in-law, and issues lampoons and cartoons 
on the woman of fashion. But the woman of fashion 
and the mother-in-law, do not write for comic papers. 



10 MY SUBJECT. 



Thus the woman of the period has ever been at 
the mercy of the man, he paints her in undying verse 
as sensual or frivolous, cold or cruel, headless and 
heartless. 

He apostrophizes her as a doll or a Devil — and, al- 
though she is neither, she must fain submit. There 
are no female Swinburnes to avenge the sex. 

So it has come to pass that influential, socially, gi- 
gantic, though he is, this man of the period has had 
no naturalist to describe him. Now, I modestly pro- 
pose to become his Cuvier, his Buffon, to reveal this 
Sphinx to his own period, and to the women thereof. 
He has held the mirror up to woman, now a woman 
shall hold the mirror up to him, let him see himself, 
perhaps, the spectacle, from its very rarity will do 
him good. He shall sit for his own photograph, but 
not in oil, there shall be no colors used, he shall be 
taken as he is, and if the likeness be not flattering, it 
shall at least be life-like. 

Now, gentlemen, you doubtless expect to read of 
your own praises, what else could you expect from a 



MY SUBJECT. II 



woman. It has been my sex's interest to keep you 
well flattered, to have you on the very best possible 
terms with yourselves, and therefore, you naturally 
suppose that I shall proceed with your worship in 
the usual manner; that I will cite a chapter from his- 
tory, or experience in your honor, follow it with a 
psalm of sentimental thanksgiving for your very ex- 
istence, and finally, fall down and worship you. But, 
I beg your pardon, I shall do nothing of the kind, 
you have had far too much of that sort of thing for 
your own good already. You men are spoilt, abso- 
lutely ruined by female flatteries and attentions. 

Your mothers and sisters sacrifice themselves for 
you daily, your sweethears and lady friends flatter 
you atrociously, and your wives pet you and coax 
you, and humor your every weakness. Now, I 
shall be your mother-in-law, and in this useful but 
unpleasant capacity, I shall tell you many wholesome 
truths, truths which may not be sweet to the palate, 
but which shall be strengthening to your system. I 
candidly confess, that were I to consult only my own 



12 MY SUBJECT. 



inclination, woman-like, I should say such charming 
things to you gentlemen, that every man in the coun- 
try would dub me " a develish fine woman, and clever, 
by Jove,'' but I have a mission to perform, private 
consideration must yield to the public good. I as- 
sure you, I am not prejudiced against you. I see 
clearly and appreciate fully your many and acknowl- 
edged excellencies, but you will also discover, I be- 
lieve, that I have studied astronomy, and that sons 
of our social system, though you are, yet like a wise 
philosopher, I have discovered that there are spots 
even in the sun. 



Chapter II. 



THE DANDY. 



T.ET us now avail ourselves of a fine afternoon and 
enjoy a promenade upon Broadway. That is the 
street for the '' men of the period." You will there 
find every type, especially will you see, in all his 
glory, and as he himself would phrase it, " giving the 
girls a treat," a certain class of male beings known as 
tailor blocks or swells, an exquisite or dandy. 

Let me introduce you to the dandy of the period. 
There he goes, along the promenade, en route for 
that museum of swells, the facade of the Fifth Av- 
enue Hotel. 

What a mincing walk he has. Talk of the Grecian 
bend, or the kangaroo sprawl of the girl of the pe- 
riod, neither of these monstrosities of gait are half as 
ridiculous as the mingled wriggle and twist ot this 
exquisite of Broadway. 



14 THE DANDY. 



And then the simper of his face the ineffable com- 
placency, as well as the inexpressible vacancy of his 
eternal smile; he comprehends creation in an all-em- 
bracing- stare, in which impudence and inanity are 
combined in most wonderful proportions. 

Now he waves with his Paris glove a **ta ta, ta ta" 
to some fellow exquisite, and anon, with a jerk, and a 
twirl and a grin, he removes his silk hat for a moment 
from his curled and oiled head to do homage, after 
the manner of his kind, to some passing belle, and 
then, with an air as if he had performed the whole 
duty of man, he wends his winding way onward, this 
paragon of animals, stroking softly and fondly his 
moustache. 

Oh ! that moustache, what feeble woman's words 
can ever do justice to a man's moustache. How he 
pats it and pets it, how he carresses it, with all the 
ineffable tenderness of a young mother fondling her 
first born ; what a doll, a French doll, is to a baby ; 
what lace, real lace, is to a woman : what her first 
love letter is to a school girl ; what fame is to a poet, 



THE DANDY. 15 



and glory to a soldier, this, and more than this, are 
his whiskers to the swell ; they are his solace and his 
occupation. He not only half the time dyes them, 
but he would at any time die for them. "^ ^ ^^ 
Ah ! he reaches the Fifth Avenue portico at last. 
Happy man ; now he can twirl his cane, or bite it ; 
how he can lean against a pillar in a die-away, or a 
" look at me and long for me girls " attitude ; now 
he can adjust his eye-glass, and faintly swear — '' By 
Jove ! a develish fine girl." Now he can look a lady 
out of countenance, or answer the meaning glances 
ot a flirt by the unmanning look of a fool ; now he 
can aw-aw and haw-haw to his manly heart's con- 
tent ; now he can exhibit his little boots and his little 
brains at the same time, and show the worst of 
breeding and the best of broad-cloth ; now he can 
simper and saunter and giggle, and wriggle back to 
his club, illustrating to the world how slight the dif~ 
ference is between the tailor's block and the milli- 
ner's model. 



Chapter III. 



OLD BEAU. 



QR perchance, he is an old beau ; it matters not, his 
age, only renders him the more ridiculous and 
the more artificial. His hair is grey, or perchance he 
wears a wig, in either case, whether his hair is bought 
by money or blanched by time, he puts his whole 
soul into it, only Heaven — and his barber — know the 
work and time he gives to it. And then the trouble 
and the expense of his teeth, why ! he has six sets, 
and then his cosmetics, and his pads, and his stays, 
and, oh ! the agonies he endures when he puts on, 
and especially, when he takes off his boots, and how 
he pencils his wrinkled old eyes, and how he roughes 
his wrinkled old cheeks, just as faithfully as any old 
dowager, I assure you ; and how the old sinner ogles 
the girls, and how airly he waves his bony old fingers, 
and, to give him his due, how bravely he battles 



OLD BEAU, 17 



with the rheumatism, and how gloriously the old vet- 
ern lights his duel with the gout, no great grand- 
mother of the mode could have done it better in the 
days of Louis, the Grand Monarch. 

And, appropos, of the dandies of the olden time, 
though they were more extravagant, more courtly, 
and more foppish, than the exquisites of to day ; 
though their toilets was more elaborate, and their at- 
tire was more gaudy, they were not a whit more 
earnest in their devotion to dress, than dandies old 
and young, of modern New York 



Chapter IV. 

man's vanity versus woman's. 

^ND just here I must, as a woman, be allowed to pro- 
test against the commonly received idea, that per- 
sonal vanity or love of dress are special characteristics 
of woman only. Man has just that weakencss for a 
tailor, which women show to their miUiner. Women 
dress because men will have them dressy. Every girl 
knows that she is desirable as a companion at the 
theatre or ball in proportion to her wardrobe, that 
men ask her company of an evening, as an elegant 
advertisement of their own taste. Men discuss a 
woman's dress with other men, and with their own 
immediate familes, a wife is well aware, that her hus- 
band notices how the wives of other men are dressed, 
women soon learn the inevitable lesson, that next to 
a woman's charms, rank in the eyes of men, her 
drygoods. 



MAN*S VANITY VERSUS WOMAN'S. I9 

That second only in importance to smiles are bon- 
nets, that inferior only to snowy arms and busts are 
panniers, and the paraphernalia of toilette. Every 
female is soon convinced that all men, whether lib- 
eral or mean, admire alike the dress extravagance of 
women — the only difference being that the generous 
man likes to see this display in his own family, 
while the skinflint admires it in the wives of other 
men. And as for personal vanity, men possess is 
equally with women — nay, I have been sometimes 
led to think that the male is the vainer animal ; 
my word for it, man's vanity is more deeply seated, 
you cannot get rid of it without getting rid of the 
man altogether. A woman's vanity is comparatively 
harmless and superficial — she prides herself on a curl, 
or a ribbon, or a bright eye, or a seal-skin sacque, on 
a coral lip or a camel's-hair shawl. But bless his dear 
heart, the man of the period is vain of his own sweet 
self, from the crown of his head to the sole of his 
feet he is the great '* I am," the none such of his 
species. Why, to his all prevading conceit, the 



20 MAN^S VANITY VERSUS WOMAN^S. 

little vanities of a woman are not worth the men- 
tioning — and as to flattery, he can swallow without 
winking, a dose that would stun even the belle of a 
dozen seasons. No compliment so outrageous but he 
will credit it, if he thinks it is meant for him ; and so 
anxious is he for the bait, that he will dart at the 
meanest minnow and feed complacently on the merest 
inuendo. A trifle that would not stir a school girl 
will put a man into a flutter. Look at him and he 
will mentally vow you languish for him, imply a 
passing preference, but by a gesture and he will for- 
ever register you among the roll of his adorers. A 
compliment to a woman is but a passing meteor, a 
man makes of it a fixed star. You merely please the 
women by flattery, you control the men. 



Chapter V. 



NERVES. 



riO, too, with many other commonly received ideas, 
thus, that women only are troubled with nerves. 
We hear and read a great deal about the nerves of 
females, but the fact is, that there are just as many 
nervous men as nervous women, and any doctor or 
druggist will tell you that it is the men who take tc 
hashish and hydrate of chloral, not the women. 
The confession of an opium eater was written, not 
by a woman, but by a man. Ah! how many women 
now perusing these pages, can from memory or ex- 
perience, recall the image of a nervous man, and 
what a pitiful image he is, to be sure. 

The husband and father, troubled with nerves, 
enters his home with the twilight, and immediately 
the stillness of midnight settles down upon his de- 
voted household ; the children at his coming hush 



22 NERVES. 



their merry voices, for it annoys the nerves of papa; 
the servants move about the house liked frightened 
ghosts, they dread ** the nerves of master.'' The wife 
and mother stifles the glad embrace she fain would 
give him, it shakes his "nerves;" even the baby fails 
to crow at his approach, the infant instinctively 
knows the nerves can't stand a crowing baby ; the 
very dog refuses to bark, the cat forgets to purr, the 
cunning animals have learned ere this to beware of 
nerves. The door jars, it agitates his nerves, the 
floor creaks, it upsets his nerves completely ; the 
only article in the house that suits his nerves is 
the dumb waiter. He comes home as usual with a 
headache, or an ache somewhere, or a pain some- 
where. He calls languidly for his slippers and a 
soothing mixture for his nerves. He passes the 
evening with his nerves — some one proposes a dance, 
his nerves won't have it. Some one plays the piano, 
his nerves can't stand it. If you rattle the evening 
paper, his nerves protest ; if you show the slightest 
sign of healthful, happy life, his nerves complain. 



NERVES. 



23 



He is a martyr to nerves, or rather he is the tyrant 
of nerves, and you and I, and all that come within his 
compass, are the martyrs. 



Chapter VI. 



HYPOCRISY, 



f^YPOCRISY too, has no sex. I know it has been 
the habit of men for years to talk and write about 
women as though hypocrisy were the especial char- 
acteristic of our sex, but men can in this, as in most 
other things, hold their own. Hypocrisy has been 
defined as the tribute vice pays to virtue, and, if this 
definition be correct, then virtue ought to have a 
most satisfactory treasury account, for the number 
of male hypocrites paying tribute to her is something 
astonishing. 

Here comes a gentleman with his wife on his arm ; 
he bows coldly to such and such a man, and he does 
not bow at all to such and such a woman. His wife 
naturally enough takes it for granted that he knows 
the man but slightly and the woman not at all. 
Confiding creature, how she would open her eyes, to 



HYPOCRISY. 25 



be sure, did she fancy what is the simple truth — that 
the man is one of her husband's literally fastest 
friends, and the woman one of his most intimate ac- 
quaintances. Or the gentleman takes his wife to the 
Academy ball, and he passes, without a look or a 
nod, the very woman whose satin domino he has 
paid for, and whom he has come to the ball to meet. 
A model husband and father has a pew in Rev. 
Dr. Dash's church, and turns up the whites of his 
eyes every Sunday, though he swindles all the rest 
of the week. He subscribes largely to foreign mis- 
sions, though he was never known to give a cent to 
a beggar ; he is a sworn advocate of temperance, and 
an unrivaled judge of brandy ; he is a philanthro- 
pist, and pays the lowest wages; he is a humanitarian, 
and exacts the longest work ; he is a moralist, and 
steeped to the eyes in intrigue ; a man of honor, and 
cheats at his club at cards. Now, a woman's hypo- 
crisy is generally shown in little things, and affects 
trifles. It is also, to a certain extent, compulsory 
with her, and is but another name for the exigencies 



26 HYPOCRISY. 



of etiquette, the demands of politeness. Women are 
hypocritical as regards society ; man is hypocritical 
as regards himself. A woman deceives you half the 
time to save your feelings ; a man deceives you al- 
ways to save himself. 



Chapter VII. 



SLANG. 



^O, too, with one much to be lamented other evil 
of the day, the tendency to slang. 

We are told that the girls use slang— poor, petted, 
spoilt, giddy girls, so they do. But what of the slang 
of the boys, the stunning, nobby boys. 

Said one girl to another, one morning, as they 
were going to school — " We're too early ; we'll have 
to loaf around until the doors are opened." " Loaf 
around!" replied the other; "that is not a pretty 
expression." " Well, I'd like to know," said the re- 
proved girl, " how I'm to learn to talk properly, 
when I have three brothers harping about ' chin-mu- 
sic ' and ' cheese it,' and ' whoop 'em up,' and ' that's 
not your racket,' and that sort of talk all the time." 
And this is just the facts of the case, her slang is 
based upon and derived from his. 



28 SLANG. 



Charley interlards his elegant conversation with 
such expressions as '* too thin,'' '* on a bust," and 
" no end of a swell," and " she's stunning/' Is 
Louisa to be sacrificed with your grammatical indig- 
nation if she beautifully hints at " sailing in," or ad- 
vises you to " wipe your chin," or alludes to her walk 
on Broadway as " giving the boys a treat.'' 

Again, is it fair in Charles to blame Louisa's slang 
and then to devote himself to the society of just 
those very girls who talk horse and use slang which 
he professes so to despise in Louisa. 

If Charles does not like slang in woman, why does 
he associate almost solely with women who use slang. 
Is it not because, after all, he can more easily appre- 
ciate and understand that sort of woman, and be- 
cause that sort of women are required to understand 
and appreciate him. The demand creates the sup- 
pl}', no doubt. 



Chapter VIII. 



THE HEIRESS HUNTER. 



J^OR years, for centuries, the world has heard of 
woman's loveless loves, her mercenary mar- 
riages, her marriage a la mode. 

Ever since jewels and gold began. 
Woman has sold herself unto man. 

In every novel we encounter the woman who dis- 
poses of herself, or is disposed of, for a bank-book and 
a four in hand. In every play we see the cold, cal- 
culating mother, who sells her daughter, or the still 
more calculating daughter, who sells herself. But, 
we never read anything of the men who consent to 
these bargains, who exchange purses for persons, who 
barter for beauty ; nor of the men who sell them- 
selves, who follow heiress-hunting as a profession. 
Woman has, at least, the shadow of an excuse for 
self sale, she is not allowed to support herself, and 
yet, she must be supported ; social position and its 



30 THE HEIRESS HUNTER. 

adjuncts of wealth, are as essential to her as to a 
man. There are as many heiress-hunters as heir- 
hunters, and there is this much to be said in this con- 
nection. The man, who for money marries a woman, 
is a more deliberate wretch, than the woman who for 
money marries a man. He makes a matter of choice 
of it, she takes to it as a sheer matter of necessity. 
He is active in his lying, she is but a passive false- 
hood — she merely suffers herself to be made love to, 
but he is a direct dissimulator. Oh ! what a manly 
spectacle is presented to the world by this gold 
seeker of society, how he adorns his race, how he 
elevates our ideas of the possibilities of humanity 
Study him as he pursues the path of his perfidious 
courtship, listen to his elaborate falsehoods ; what a 
consummate actor, what a look he casts into his eyes, 
of a love that has no place in his heart, what an ac- 
cent he throws into his voice, of a passion that has 
no existence in his soul ; what a thorough master of 
detail, how he graduates his steps and composes his 
looks, and governs his actions all for one sole end, of 



THE HEIRESS HUNTER. 31 



producing the required effect upon the woman who 
is to be at once his bride and banker ; what a pefect 
man ; how he takes advantage of a woman, how he 
speculates upon her loving bUndness, how he liter- 
lly coins her all confiding tenderness, how he 
winds his carressing arms about her waist ; imagin- 
ing all the while he is dipping his clutching fingers 
in her purse. 

Ah ! what a model of a man taken altogether ; a 
drone who has a sloth's dread of honest work, a false- 
sifier who makes a fine art of falsehood ; a thief, for 
he handles money to which he has no right ; a hypo- 
crite who attempts to deceive men ; a dastard who 
does deceive a woman ; a perjurer who would fain 
deceive his God. 



Chapter IX. 

THE NICE YOUNG MAN. 

^HEN we must not forget to pay our respects to 
the nice young man — and appropos of this nice 
young man, who parts his hair in the middle and 
never has an idea, who is a little of a fop and a good 
deal of a fool, who is a living, breathing proof of the 
falsity of that scientific saw that " nature abhors a 
vacuum." This nice young man is only the male 
analogue to the poor creature, who from time im- 
memorial has been made the sport of every man who 
could write a line and who was in want of a subject, 
'^the silly girl." But never was any girl as un- 
pardonably silly as this nice young man, for the girl, 
though a fool, is at least a pretty fool, a graceful fool, 
a fool who knows how to dress and be interesting, a 
fool, too, who is a fool with some excuse. She is not 
expected or instructed to be much else, and has 
little chance to be otherwise. 



THE NICE YOUNG MAN, 33 

But a male fool is a fool without excuse or re- 
demption ; he is about as attractive as a barber's 
pole ; a fool who lisps, who says ^' ith '' for is, and 
" wery '' for very, who mutilates his mother tongue 
whenever he uses his own. His stare is worse than 
his drawl, and his self-complacency is worse than 
either. Spite of his schooling at home he is a dunce, 
and spite of his tour abroad, he but illustrates the 

lines. How much a fool that has been sent to Rome 

'Excells a fool that has been kept at home. 

And marriage that generally saves a female fool by 
transforming her into a mother, only stultifies still far- 
ther, the male fool, by giving him responsibilities and 
opportunities which he knows not what to do with. 
The fool of a wife may make the pattern of a mother, 
but the fool of a husband invariably makes the fool of 
a father. The silly girl of the period may develop 
into the sweet centre of the household. But the 
nice young male idiot can only glide with years into 
the nice old idiot. Because the silly girl is a fool on 
the surface, the fool of education and circumstances, 
but the " nice young man " is a fool by nature and a 
fool en grain. 



Chapter X. 



THE MODERN SPOON. 



T,ET me now direct your attention to the men of 
the period, viewed in their domestic and social 
relations. Now of course the man of the period, so- 
cially considered, is either married or single, though 
it must be confessed, some men so conduct them- 
selves that it is difficult to classify them, still though 
marriage does not much matter to the man of the 
period, even the most advanced man will admit that 
It does make some difference, so in our review we 
will pay our respects to the unmarried ones first — 
there are plenty of them. 

There is the sentimentaUst, for instance, the mod- 
ern "Spoon;'' now, he is a curious article; he is 
poetry plated, a perfect dictionary of quotations and 
he regards every woman as a species of clothes line 
— upon which to hang his borrowed sentiments. 



THE MODERN SPOON. 35 

It is a mistake to suppose that sentimentality is con- 
fined to the female sex ; the fact is, the male of our 
species far surpasses, in this, any woman ; the female 
sentimentalist loves gush, but the male sentimentalist 
is a gusher — he is a perfect patent inexhaustible self- 
feeding machine for hand squeezing, sighing, eye 
making and miscellaneous soft nonsense, warranted 
to talk, look and act sentiment after its namby 
pamby milk and water fashion, to any woman, from 
the age of fifteen years to fifty, at any hour of the 
day or night, with or without provocation or pre- 
vious notice. The gusher is full of stock quota- 
tions, sugar coated, which he bestows indiscrimin- 
ately upon his slightest acquaintance at the slight- 
est notice. He crams Byron, and Swineburne and 
Owen Merrideth, and Coventry Patmore, and Bul- 
wer, and if a woman but looks his way, up goes his 
eyes, and out comes a quotation. I knew a gusher 
once, I have taken good care never to know another 
since ; he satiated, with his sentiment, every woman 
in the neighborhood, from his servant girl to his 



36 THE MODERN SPOON. 

grandmother. He was introduced to me on a 
North River steamboat, ere he ended his bow he 
had commenced to m^ake love ; he gave me five quo- 
tations in five minutes, and had exhausted all the 
possibilities of poetry ere he reached the Highlands. 
He was one of those men who construe a hand- 
shake into '' persevere," and a smile into " you will 
succeed.'' Now, there is no real heart about such 
men, they are all tongue, their admiration for women 
is superficial, their praise is not sincere, it is mere 
flattery. 



Chapter XL 

THE GENERAL LOVER. 



gTILL another class, who for want of a more speci- 
fic name, we will call the general lover. Now this 
individual differs from the mere sentimentalist, in that 
he is no sentimentalist at all ; he does not dabble m 
sentiment, he dashes into love. His love is genuine, 
too, while it lasts, only it is far too general ; he loves 
love for its own sake, the particular kind of woman 
he happens to be in love with at the time makes no 
particular difference. Hj :s a victim to what the 
poets call " the strong necessity of loving," and he 
falls in love with every women who crosses his path. 
He meets a quiet little beauty, one of those home 
bodies, who make such dehghtful daughters, such 
charming sisters, such delicious wives ; at once he 
fancies that he loves her, and leads her to fancy that 
he does so. He hums " Hou;e Sweet Home," and 



38 THE GENERAL LOVER. 



dreams of domestic bliss and slippers, tenderness and 
tea, with his little home-body beaming and darning 
at his side. When lo! at a ball he meets a woman 
of an entirely different order, a dashing creature, who 
iotes on Strauss, who is the best waltzer of her set, 
ho wears the longest of trains, the lowest of bodices 
ihe most elaborate of toilettes^ whose very breath is 
society, and whose native element is champagne. At 
once he falls in love with number two, abjures his 
dreams of stay-at-home evenings and has visions of 
no end of suppers and unlimited quadrilles with his 
dashing fair one for a partner alike in gastronomy 
and Terpsichore. Now he is no falsehood, he is only 
so susceptible ; he is not wicked, he is only weak ; not 
alone a lover of the period but a lover for a period. 



Chapter XII. 

PIECE-MEAL ADMIRERS. 

^HESE are a class of men who conceive for a 
while a tremendous but temporary attachment 
for a woman, not on account of the woman herself, 
not for her mental or moral qualities, but for some 
special physical charm which she possesses ; one such 
man will adore a woman for her snowy shoulders, or 
her plump arms, or her piercing eyes, or her blonde 
hair; another will hang his heart on a l()-inch waist, 
another will stay his, soul on a Spanish ankle or a 
French boot — their ideas go no further, they don't 
care a rap whether the woman with the worshipped 
hair has anything in her head ; they don't care 
whether the divinity with the bust has in that bust 
a heart, whether his angel with the foot and ankle 
has any aspirations, principles or affections. No, he 
cares no more for the soul of woman than does a 
Turk. 



40 PIECE-MEAL ADMIRERS. 



I once knew such a man who not only adored a 
woman to distraction, but could give, as, he thought, 
three good reasons for being distracted. '' Her fine 
complexion, her magnificent figure, and her glorious 
golden hair." Now, it so happened, to my certain 
knowledge, that her complexion was a bottle, her 
figure w^as pad, and her hair was a dye. He madly 
worshipped a goddess who could be manufactured 
for five dollars. 

These men marry these women sometimes, and 
then, Heaven help the woman if she has heart, and 
soul, or anything besides the particular blonde hair, 
or Spanish ankle which the man has married, for she 
has aroused in him only a passion ; and sickness, or in- 
deed a pimple, will dispel such affection. From 
piece-meal admirers, pray Heaven deliver us. 



Chapter XIII. 



IMAGINATIVE MEN. 



^HESE are a class of men, who are characteristi- 
cally imaginative ; not intellectually, but senti- 
mentally ; poets not in their ideas, but in their pas- 
sions ; men whose affections and desires, such as they 
are,^ * * demand high-seasoning, crave spiced food, 
whose loves must be flavored with a sauce piqimnte 
of insecurity to give them zest. With these men it is 
the first requisite m fruit, that it should not fall till, 
it is with some diiBcuhy shaken ; with them, it is a 
necessary essential of the course of true love, that 
it should not run smooth. In other words, with 
these men, the supreme charm in a woman, is the su- 
preme difficulty of her conquest. Now in ordinary 
life, these creatures are neither more persevering or 
courageous then their fellows, but, in any case where 
their love affairs are interested, they will pause at 



42 IMAGINATIVE MEN. 

no difficulties, and hesitate at no risks ; they will 
work day and night, for weeks and months, to obtain 
what might be gained elsewhere, for the mere ask- 
ing ; they will encounter every danger, to storm what 
under other circumstances, would be surrendered to 
them without a battle. The orthodox course of an 
ordinary courtship, would drive these men to the 
verge of despair ; it would never enter into their 
heads, to propose to a woman who would merely, 
blushingly tell them to " ask pa." A recognized 
honeymoon with all the orthodox etceteras, would 
be torture ; a marriage with all the usual accom- 
paniments of " take her and be happy my children, 
God bless you both," would be equivalent, in their 
ears, to '^off with his head, so much for Bucking- 
ham." And, with these men, a woman whose 
moods could be calculated upon, she would never 
enter into their calculations ; to men like these, a 
woman to be worth the study, must be like X in 
Algebra, an unknown quantity ; to such men, a 
woman to be a divinity, must have a spice of 



IMAGINATIVE MEN. 43 



the . They must have obstacles in their path, 

or they will not advance a step ; courtship to them, 
must be a perpetual challenge ; there must be hos- 
tile fathers, opposmg mothers, big brothers and 
watchful guardians ; there must be houses they 
must not visit, and women, they must not see ; then, 
at all hazards, they will find or make a way to see 
those very women in those very houses. And these 
men make very uncertain husbands ; for the moment 
a woman is no longer surrounded with difficulties, 
she ceases to be an object of attraction , the instant 
she steps from insecurity to security, that instant she 
falls from adoration to indifference. 

The only possible w^ay for a woman to enchain 
these men, is to elude them. The only way she can 
lead them to desire matrimony, is never to marry 
them. If she wishes to deny thom nothing, she 
must refuse them everything. 



Chapter XIV, 

GRAND LAMAS. 

^ND here let me allude en passsant to a class of 
men— men for whom I presume many of 
my fair readers will have but little sympathy — natur- 
ally enough, too, as these men usurp the essentially 
feminine prerogative of being adored rather than 
adoring. 1 allude to that class of men who require to 
be made love to. Thank Heaven, they are the excep- 
tion to the rule. The men of whom 1 speak are not 
necesarily vain of their persons ; they are not snobs 
or fools, far from it ; they are generally the reverse ; 
but they entertain a supreme idea of their own su- 
periority of mind and nobility of soul. And with 
these men it is the first requisite of a woman, in their 
eyes, that she should fully believe in their possession 
of these qualities, and should bow down and worship 
their possessor. With these men the sexes are re- 



GRAND LAMAS. 45 

versed — man must be adored, and woman must do 
the adoring ; he must be courted, and she must do 
the courting — it is with the women to decide 
whether such as he be worth the wooing. Such a 
man makes a perfect heathen idol of himself; builds 
a pagoda all around him, and there stands or sits to 
be worshipped. He will endure any amount of in- 
cense and prostration ; he will swallow down his 
own divinity in very large doses. And then, when 
you have passed your days and nights in worshipping 
at the shrine of this wonderful god, you must not, 
for one moment, expect him to smile on you — be 
satisfied if he so much as winks at his worshipper. 

Yet these inflated creatures are easily enough 
managed, by a wise woman who understands them, 
— and will take the trouble — through their vanity. 
God as he thinks he is, you can lead him like a 
gander. Cast sheep's eyes at him, heave sighs, 
make him believe you cannot resist him, and so you 
will yourself become irresistible. 

Make him think that you think that, do what you 



46 GRAND LAMAS. 



Will, you never can win him, and you win him at 
once. Make him believe that you believe that, do 
what ou will, you can never approach him in intel- 
lect, in judgment — in fact, in any way ; that you can 
>nly puSS your time looking up to this wonderful 
god in mute adoration, and he will be at your feet. 
You play with these Grand Lamas and Brahmasand 
Mikadoes just as a fisherman plays with a trout — you 
fish for him by keeping quiet, and, baiting the 
hook with a profound worship for his pet weakness, 
and you land him high and dry on the matrimonial 
shore, and you keep your hook in his divine nose 
ever after, and lead this 2:reat mogul about as you 
would a pet bear — by constantly tugging at his 
vanity. 



II 



Chapter XV. 

PIG-HEADED MEX. 

"^OW, of a directly opposite class, yet just as easily 
managed by a wise woman, are the weak, suspi- 
cious, pig-headed men, of whom so often I hear my sex 
complain. ' Oh ! he is a perfect pig," said a wife to 
me the other day, alluding, of course, to her hus 
band. '* Well, my dear/' said I, calmly, " why then 
don't you treat him like a pig, when you really want 
him to go one way, pretend to drive him the other. 
It IS all very simple ; there is nothing easier than the 
matrimonial management of man, it only requires a 
study of the natural history of the animal. ;\nd I 
would here advise the introduction of this branch of 
science into all our female schools, for there is no 
telling when a girl may meet with any of these types 
of our social menagerie. 



Chapter XVf. 



THE SPOILT MAN 



^HE spoilt man of the period is generally a pet 
actor, or a popular tenor ; probable he sings only 
fairly, or he acts only passably. Perchance he has 
only his good looks or his easy assurance to recom- 
mend him, but at any rate, there is a something about 
this thrice-favored man which takes the town by 
storm. And once havmg taken the town it is per- 
fectly astonishmg how m.uch the town will take from 
him. He can accomplish more for his own ambition 
or aggrandizement in one calendar month than a 
better man can in one century by the calendar, 

And while his '' taking power " lasts this spoilt man 
of the period is as vain and as petted and as wor- 
shipped as any belle. He is as much adored by women 
as ever woman was by man, and he is as much addk-d 
by the adoration. This curled darling of the period 



THE SPOILT MAN. 49 

lives in rooms luxuriously furnished, on a fashionable 
street in the close vicinity of the avenue ; he keeps 
quite an establishment, and one of the chief duties of 
his valet is to see that he receives regularly his daily 
mail of female letters. 

These epistles are very numerous, almost as nu- 
merous as duns, they are counted by the score ; one 
would think that our spoilt man was a prime minis- 
ter, or had advertised for a wife or a boarding house. 
These letters are, all of them, in fine envelopes, some 
in light blue, some in delicate cream color, some 
are square, some three-cornered, and all are per- 
fumed and directed in feminine handwriting. They 
come from all portions of the city, but the majority 
were sent from the west side and were mdited by 
Flora McFlimsey. 

The spoilt man receives them and reads them in 
bed, smiling superciliously the while, and stroking 
his mustache as he reads. Evidently he feels like a 
benignant idol receiving the adoration of his self-de- 
luded worshippers. 



50 THE SPOILT MAN. 

Then he yawns, and rings for his toilette apparatus; 
then he dawdles over his breakfast, and then he pro- 
poses to exhibit himself on the promenade to a be- 
witched world. 

He puts his letters in his pocket, ere he starts ; he 
never travels without them ; he considers them as 
his trophies : he views them in the same light an In- 
dian does his scalps, and, just as the red man boasts 
of his conquests freely to his world, so the spoilt man 
of the period boasts of his. He is as vain of the silly 
notes he receives as ever Hole-in- the- Wall, or Sitting 
Bull, or Grizzly Bear, were of their bloody trophies, 
and, as the Indian does not hesitate to exhibit his 
scalps to his world, so the spoilt man never hesitates 
to exhibit his. 

It IS well known a favorite actor, much in demand 
as a divinity among the females of his day, had three 
or four intimate friends to whom he was wont to 
toss his notes when he had done with them. While 
not many years ago a well-worshipped tenor openly 
boasted on the street of one of our large cities, wav- 



THE SPOILT MAN, 5 1 

ing a package of letters he had just received, that he 
held the reputation of half the fashionable women in 
the town in his hands. 

The truth is, that the spoilt man of the period is 
weaker and vainer and more consequential than any 
belle ; he is more conceited of his conquests among 
the silliest of women than any woman is of her suc- 
cess with the wisest of men. Just look at the airs 
and graces which the man puts on. With what con- 
descension he bows, with what impertinence he 
stares, and, if he chances to meet one of his foohsh 
fair adorers, how grandly he smiles, as though he 
really thought himself the god she thinks him. 

And when he drives his dog-cart along the avenue 
in the afternoon how ineffable is his self-satisfaction. 
You would fancy he was Buddha giving himself an 
airing, and, when he sees the girls nudging each 
other and looking after him, how he tugs at his collar, 
or strokes his whiskers, or beams from his eyes. Ah ! 
1 have sometimes thought that it is just as well that 
society insists that man should do the courting and 



52 THE , SPOILT MAN. 

that woman should be the courted. For, imagine it 
to be the other way, fancy what a world it would be 
when such a creature as this was the recognized ob- 
ject of female addresses. How he would strut, to be 
sure ; how he would crush too presumptions crino- 
Imes , how he would awe us poor women. 

Why, you would never dare to approach this mon- 
ster of conceit, save on your bended knee, and after 
you had crawled humbly to his temple, and pros- 
trated yourself on his doorstep, his valet would 
condescend to inform you m answer to your modest 
supplications, that ** his Royal Nibs was already some 
fifteen women deep, but, that if you would kneel an 
hour or two longer, you might probably be permit- 
ted a five seconds sight of his Imperial Impudence." 
And then, when you were permitted to totter into his 
presence, you would be allowed an extended finger, 
or to kiss the tip of his coat-tail, you would be favored 
with a passing glance from those majestic eyes, you 
would be honored by a stray word from those exalted 
lips, you would be presented with his Royal photo- 



THE SPOILT MAN. 53 

graph, which you would be expected to worship on 
the spot, then, an attendant would take your name, 
and add it to the army of adorers already enrolled in 
the king's album, a list of whom would be published 
regularly in the Home Journal. Then, with a pro- 
found kotow on your part, and a ta-ta dear, ta-ta on 
his, the presentation would be over, and you would 
be expected to be a happy and an honored female, 
for a month, at least. 



Chapter XVIl. 



THE GOSSIP. 



T ET i^G ^^^ show you the tale bearer, the gossip, 
the slanderer. Here you interrupt me, and tell 
me I have forgotten my subject that I am writing on 
men not women, and that, therefore, I have nothing 
to do with gossip and scandal. But, 1 beg your par- 
don, I am stickmg to my text, and when 1 speak of a 
gossip who wears a coat and a scandal monger in 
pantaloons, I mean a real being, who far surpasses in 
this Ime, any petticoat slayer of reputations in exist- 
ence. 

It is a mistake that has been made by men, wittingly 
and unwittingly, from time immemorial. A mistake 
in which women have allowed themselves to ac- 
quiesce, and have done themselves gross injustice 
by acquiescing, that the woman is />ar excellence, the 
back-biter and slanderer of her race. But, is it 



THE GOSSIP. 55 

true, does the tea table produce more gossip than the 
stock board? Is the old maid a whit more addicted 
to slander than club men ? Let us see. 

Young Clarence Augustus Von Knickbocker some- 
thing, IS wending his way, about 1 1 o^clock one fine 
winter's morning, towards that mysterious locality 
where fortunes are made and reputations are lost, 
called " down town." He meets old Fitz Boodle, 
well known '* on the street/^ the two men exchange 
the compliments of the day, join their forces and 
talk — on the politics of the time, oh ! of course ; on 
the great mercantile operations of the period, with- 
out a doubt. Not a bit of it; they discuss Mrs. 
Noodle's reception, or Miss Jones' german, they 
revel in the memories thereof with as much gusto as 
any two of the women who attended either — and 
their recollections are iniinite of both. Not a detail 
has escaped their eyes or their tongues — they recall 
every fact, however trivial, the corset waist worn by 
Miss Robbins, which displayed so strikingly her 
skinny shoulders and lean bust, the long trail so 



56 THE GOSStP. 



awkwardly earned by Miss Shoddy, and then the 
way in which Blunders led the german, and the way 
in which that Skinner woman, (who they do say is 
getting a divorce from her cad of a husband) flirted 
with that good looking scape-grace, young Alexis. 
And then they w^onder where the duce Mrs. Y. got 
her diamonds from, and significantly hint that though 
old Bamboozle has taken advantage of the bankrupt 
act his wife had a small fortune on her back that 
night. And then by degrees the precious pair of 
full-grown men get down to the piece de resistance 
the choice particular scandal of the day, the rumored 
trouble between Charley Wilkins and his wife, and 
her penchant for that dashing foreigner, the rich 
Cuban. Neither party knows anything about the 
matter, but they draw freely on their imagination, 
and, for sheer love of gossip, keep on stabbing the 
poor woman's character every step they take till 
they reach their respective offices. 

There ** stock " is the business, but scandal is the 
occupation. Central, Lake Shore, Union Pacific and 



THE GOSSIP. 57 



Western Union are dabbled in for greed, but the 
Wilkins-Cuban scandal is dwelt upon with gusto. 
Every new man who comes in brings with him his 
"points" concerning the ''street," and also his ''points" 
concerning the scandal. One knows the Cuban, and 
he forthwith retails all his budget of his friend's 
amours ; another is acquainted with the husband, and 
he freely retails all his friend's suspicions; a third 
knows all about Mrs. W., and he is most in demand 
of all, and dashes off into all sorts of stories, true or 
false as the case may be, but all serving to make the 
poor woman more than ever the town talk. 

As the day grows apace, the slander grows worse ; 
as the men go up town they hear new gossip, some 
grossly exaggerated, some wholly false, but all tend- 
ing to soil and to destroy. What was merely a flirt- 
ation on Broad street has become an intrigue at 
Union square, till finally the scandal reaches the 
clubs, and here it revels in license, and, ere the night 
is done, the woman is riddled to death, to moral and 
social death, without a shred of reputation left to 
bide her in. 



58 THE GOSSIP. 



Not one of these men but has been a guest at the 
talked of husband's table. Not one of these men but 
has been favored with the friendly intimacy of the 
slandered wife. 

There has been in this no direct malice, and this 
only makes the case the more terrible. The woman 
has been destroyed through thoughtlessness, through 
recklessness, through man's sheer love of gossip and 
scandal. 



Chapter XVIII. 

THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. 

^UT let me now introduce to you that pest of 
modern social life, that Pariah of civilization, that 
wholly merciless and unmanly male, the slanderer 
and the braggart. This creature is to be found any- 
where and everywhere ; he is emphatically a man 
about town ; you may encounter him on the prome- 
nade, you may come across him at the club, you may 
meet him in society; all times and all places are alike 
to him for he can lie and traduce in them all. In 
nine cases out of ten he is an arrant knave, a perverse 
falsifier. He manufactures his destroying facts ; like 
the spider he evolves from his own base self the web 
in which he emeshes his victim, and even in the tenth 
instance, when by some strange accident he speaks 
the truth, he grossly distorts or yet more grossly exag- 
gerates it. A trifle light as air, a smile or a caress be- 



6o THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. 

Stowed him in an unguarded moment by a trusting,too 
confiding fair one, a kiss or an embrace given by a 
loving woman who thought she was loving a man ; 
these are perverted by his worthlessness and pub- 
lished to the world. He is ingenious too, a perfect 
master of the mysteries of inuendo ; what he says is 
trivial, what he implies is terrible. He is a Talleyrand 
in the impressive, yet untranslatable language of 
shrugs ; a master of the language of the eye ; with 
him a look can imply a volume of slander; a shrug can 
signify a volume of detraction. He is wholly merci- 
less ; no consideration can withhold his tongue ; no 
sentiment of honor in a man bids him respect the 
honor of a woman. 

This creature is also ineffably vain and conceited and 
withal morbidly susceptible to slight; it is either his 
morbid vanity or his yet more morbid pique that 
lies at the very foundation of all his lies. If a woman 
loves him, he slays her on the altar of his vanity ; if 
she loves him not, he sacrifices her ruthlessly as a 
holocaust to his pride. There is but one human 



THE SLANDERER AND BRAGGART. 6 1 

emotion to which he is susceptible, and that is 
fear — the slanderer of women and boaster of 
triumphs among women, is generally, thank 
Heaven, a coward among men. A woman's char- 
acter is safe from his attack only when she can 
command a champion. He trembles before a beauty 
who has a brother. He is of all created beings the 
most to be dreaded and the most to be despised — of 
all the weeds that fester in the tropical luxuriance of 
our modern social civilization at once the most poison- 
ous and the foulest is the slanderer and the braggart. 



Chapter XIX. 



THE "MASHER." 

^ND just here I will take the opportunity to intro- 
duce to you another type of the pests of the pe- 
riod, from whom I am very sure every woman has at 
one time or another, in her own person, suffered. A 
man as ridiculous as he is utterly contemptible — the 
" masher" of the period. I must beg my readers' par- 
don for thus obtruding the slang of the period upon 
them, but it is absolutely necessary in this instance. 
Victor Hugo, one of the world's greatest living 
authors, has borne testimony to the expressiveness of 
slang, and really, in this instance, there is no other 
word in the language that so describes the creature 
I would designate. This "masher," then, is a being in 
pantaloons who makes it about the only real business 
of his life to form the acquaintance of women in his 
own peculiar way, and to improve that acquaintance 



THE "MASHER." 63 



in his own peculiar fashion. This specimen of the 
male menagerie exists in large numbers and abso- 
lutely,during the promenade hours, infests Broadway 
and Fifth Avenue. I think that an account of the 
creature's nature or acquired habits will be of inter- 
est. Now, this '* masher" has generally a good looking 
face, though sometimes, it is true, he is as ugly as 
possible,and dependent solely on his native impudence 
to carry him along But as a rule, a passable share 
of good looks, combined with an everlasting smirk, 
and a mustache, are important items of his stock in 
trade. He wears good clothes too, thanks to the 
credit system, and has a certain amount of money and 
time at his disposal — generally more time than money. 
He may be either old or young, married or single. 

Now, it sometimes happens that the '' masher " is a 
club man. In this instance, he is always to be 
found during the promenade hours at the club and 
hotel windows overlooking Broadway and Fifth 
Avenue; there he stands for hours biting his cane, or 
with his lazy, light gloved fingers stroking airily his 



64 THE *♦ MASHER. 



whiskers and staring- with all his might at every 
woman who passes. He might be designated the 
champion starer of the period, for he is all eyes. True, 
he sees not, he cares not to see the beauties of nature 
as shown in fleecy cloud, or tinted sky, or leafy tree. 
True, he sees not, he cares not to see, the beauties of 
art as they are to be found in picture, in statue and 
m poem. True, he sees not the marvels of enterprise 
which m the great city are reared on every side of 
him. But what of that? he sees what to him is of 
vastly more importance ; he sees every curve of a 
woman's foot, every glance of a woman's eye as she 
passes. He ogles her as she steps along, he smirks 
at her as she glides by ; if she be a modest woman he 
seeks to stare her out of countenance, and if bethinks 
he sees a chance he bows, bows with an air of con- 
ceited puppyism; bows with a smile as silly as it is im- 
pertinent. He may bow in such a manner that the 
lady for the moment fancies that she has somewhere 
met the creature before, and returns his salutation. 
That is enough; then, with an ineffably suggestive 



THE "MASHER." 65 



smile directed to his fellow starers, he proceeds to 
talk about his unconscious victim and will then and 
there manufacture twenty triumphs over the woman 
he has seen but once. But, as a rule, the " masher" is 
to be found in all his glory upon Broadway. Walking, 
and bowing, and smiling — he does nothing else — he is 
a peripathetic piece of impertinence, a walking insult, 
ever ready to take his hat off at the slightest glance 
of a woman, while she is ready to take his head off. 
If you stop to look in the shop windows, lo ! to your 
mingled horror and disgust, the grinning creature is 
at your side. If you walk quietly along he is at your 
elbow, keeping step with you, if you hope to elude 
him and hail a stage, you have scarcely taken your 
seat, you raise your eyes, and lo ! the wretch offers 
to hand your fare. Many a pretty woman's out-door 
life is rendered a burden by reason of this intoler- 
able nuisance, this would-be-picker-up-of- women, this 
ineffably conceited puppy who fancies there is enough 
in his tolerable countenance and intolerable impu- 
dence to cause a woman to forget alike, modesty, 



(>e 



THE " MASHER.'^ 



etiquette and common sensed and to form his street 
acquaintance only that he may boast of her among 
his curbstone corner cronies. He is a street nuisance, 
worse, by all odds, than the lead pencil man or the 
pin venders, worse than even the winter's slush or 
the summer's dust and he should be removed by city 
ordinance, exterminated by contract. Will our city 
father's think of this ? I know one woman who will 
take the contract. 



Chapter XX. 

THE PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 

"Now, all men do not make calls. Many regard 
them as a bore, hence the club; where, removed 
from the restraints of female influence the ** lords of 
creation" can assert their proud prerogative of play- 
ing draw poker, and staying out till two or three in 
the morning. To such a club creature as this, woman, 
unless in the shape of a housekeeper or a washwoman, 
is a myth. Then, there is the average man of the 
world, who is not quite so confirmed a clubite as this, 
and who makes calls occasionally, on New Years, 
and after a party, just enough to keep himself on the 
books of society. But outside and beyond these 
positive and confirmed anchorites, there is the great 
mass of the day, the men who pay calls regularly, and 
it is of this class that I would speak, and I assure 
you, making calls is a good social institution, and de- 



68 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 

cidedly beneficial, particularly to the men who make 
them. And now for the portrait of the most inveter. 
ate call-maker I ever knew — the patent champion 
caller of the Metropolis, whose pen-picture will be 
recognized by all who know him. His life closely 
resembles that of an orthodox Christian, in being a 
perpetual " call," though there is no '' saint's rest '* 
about it. His pocket Bible is substantially a visiting 
list, which he consults as zealously as the saint does 
the Scripture. He regards every woman as a female 
accession to his list. He keeps the city directory to ob- 
tain from it the address of anybody whose card he 
may lose. He divides the city into two portions — the 
fashionable, where he visits, and the unfashionable, 
where he does not. He keeps a call register, in 
which he faithfully registers his calls, and notes their 
details precisely, as a Christian would note his re- 
ligious experiences, m his diary. 

Monday Evening. — Had a refreshing call on Miss 
Snooks. 

Tuesday Evenmg. — Enjoyed a delightful experi- 
ence in my tete-a-tete with Miss Brown. 



PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 69 

Wednesday Evening. — Had a season of awakening 
in my call on Miss Shoe and Leather. 

Thursday Evening. — Passed a profitable hour with 
Miss Haifa-Million, and so on for six months in a 
similar strain. Fully believing that as the good old 
hymn says : 

" He is a pilgrim and a stranger, 
He can tarry but a night," 

he makes the voluntary pilgrimage of society, and 
passes his life in journeying from house to house. 
He takes his cane with him for staff, and his card case 
serves him for scrip, and thus accoutered, he goes 
around the social world in eighty days or nights, 
more or less. 

It is calculated that next to a postman or a lightn- 
ing rod agent, the "patent champion American caller" 
walks more than any other class of men. He is a hard 
working man, this P. C. A. C. ; none but those who 
have tried it and failed, can realize how hard it is to 
keep *' up " a visiting list. Poor fellow, he is but a 
dog in a treadmill, a poodle with gloves and a card 



70 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 

case, in an everlasting social treadmill, or to use a 
more refined simile, a modern martyr, a smiling 
scented, soft headed, swallow-tailed, small talking 
martyr to modern social custom. Such as he is, the 
P. C. A. C. is a great American institution, along with 
the peddler and the quack doctor, and the Ameri- 
can Eagle, and the rest of our institutions. In fact, 
our American girls could spare all the rest better 
than they could spare him ; for what would become 
of our " patent champion American girls " without 
their " patent champion American caller." 

But '' one star differs from another star in glory " 
and so callers are not all alike, any more than any 
other saints, or fools, or martyrs. Thus we have the 
eccentric caller, eccentric not in himself but in his 
manner of calling. " The comet caller " I would 
style him — his rule about calling seems to be to have 
no rule at all, he will not visit you once in six months 
perhaps, why he has stayed away, you know not, 
neither do you know why he calls to-night, he may 
stay five minutes, he may spend the entire evening, 



PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. Jl 

he may call to-morrow and every night for a week, 
and — he may not call again for a twelve month. An- 
other will call every week, always on the same night 
and always at the same hour. Like a railroad train 
he is due at 8.30, and Hke a railroad train he will 
leave at a specific time. 1 call him the clock-work 
caller^ the very antipodes of the " Comet" and a man 
to be depended upon. Then there is the '' Chameleon 
ca»ller " for just as the Chameleon changes his hues, 
and is never the same color long, so he changes his 
mood and is never the same mood long. Every call 
exhibits him in a new light, every visit is a revelation. 
You never see the same man twice. Sometimes he is 
in a philosophic mood and calls like a college profes- 
sor. Sometimes he is in a sportive mood and calls 
like a school-boy, or rather behaves like one. Now 
he affects the swell and will out-dandy a dandy; then, 
in his next visit he will be in the most free and easy 
undress style imaginable ; again he will affect the 
sentimental mood and quote poetry, &c., and I some- 
times think he adopts these various moods for the 



72 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 



very purpose of being thought odd and interesting. 
Then there is Mr. Wiseman, a very shrewd, ele- 
gant young gentleman, who pays his calls always in 
the morning, as he told me once in confidence, just 
as I now tell the reader in confidence — '' you see," 
said Wiseman, '*if you call on a lady in the evening 
she is prepared for you, she is a warrior accustomed 
to fight under the gas light — she meets you with her 
armor on — she has the advantage of time and place. 
But if you call on her in the morning she is at a dis- 
advantage and she meets you disarmed. The very 
fact of your calling upon her always in the morning 
causes her to regard you in a different light from 
other men — she cannot lump you with the herd of 
evening callers, but has to give you in her mind a 
place by yourself. And then you can find out the 
real character of a woman so much better in the day 
time. Women are artificial at best, but they are doubly 
so by gas light; gas light goes with glamour, remove 
the one and you often get rid of the other. Call on a 
belle at eight in the evening, you will only see the 



PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 73 

belle, but visit her at — say 1 1 A. M. — you won't find 
the belle, she ain't-up, but take my word for it, you 
will stumble upon the woman herself. You learn 
more of a woman's real nature in one morning than 
in a dozen evenings, and as for opportunity, there is 
more facility for sentiment than at midnight, if men 
did but know it." So said Mr. Wiseman, and I really 
think the man was wise for saying it. But there is 
Mr. Openair, who was with woman wiser still; now 
his style of making calls was never to make calls at 
all, as such, yet his visits were always satisfactory to 
all parties. The way he managed it was this : he was 
a philosopher and had studied human nature, he 
would just drop in and ask the lady to accompany 
him for a ride, or to the theatre, or the opera, or to 
Delmonico's for lunch, or to Bigot's for ices, or some- 
where for something, so it was a sort of pic-nic or a 
pleasure party or anything except a mere formal call; 
consequently the lady always associates him with 
something agreeable, and wasn't he successful ? — why 
he made more progress in her good graces in one call 



74 PATENT CHAMPION AMERICAN CALLER. 



of this kind than he would have made in a course of 
ordinary house visits. *' Always get a woman out in 
the open air with you if you can, never make calls 
between walls," said this youthful sage, and I believe 
from what 1 know of myself and others of my sex, 
that this Talleyrand among the ladies was in the 
right. If 1 were a man I would practice his pre- 
cepts. 



Chapter XXI. 



RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 



^HIS has been called a "non-marrying- age'' and 
with truth; this fact is acknowledged and re- 
gretted on every side. Essayists have discussed it, 
moralists have deprecated it, but none have denied 
it. Never was there an age when there was less 
marrying than the present, not even in that era ot 
which historians treat when Rome, the mistress of 
the world, was on the verge of being depopulated 
because her masters would be bachelors. Historians 
tell us that all manner of bribes were offered to the 
bachelors of those days if they would only marry. 

" If they would only find, 

Some handsome Roman lady just 

Suited to their mind." 

But in vain the Emperor threatened, in vain he 
promised; neither threat nor promise could make the 
bachelors of the Eternal City anything but eternally 



^6 RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 



bachelors. And each year that he remains unmar- 
ried seems to increase his desire to remain wifeless. 
Now according to the assurance tables, the older a 
widower is the more likely he is to marry again, and 
the older a bachelor is the less likely is he to marry 
at all. 

According to these singular but carefully compiled 
and accurate estimates, from twenty years to thirty 
the probabilities of a widower marrying in a year is 
nearly three times as great as those of a bachelor, at 
thirty it is four times and so on till at sixty the prob- 
abilities of a widower marrymg in a year are eleven 
times those of a bachelor. 

After the age of thirty the probabilities of a bach- 
elor marrying decreases rapidly . It is indeed sin- 
gular to remark how confirmed each class becomes 
in its condition, how little likely is a bachelor to break 
through his settled habits and solitary state, and on 
the other hand how the widowers each year evince 
a stronger and stronger inclination to hug something 
more substantial than grief. Our rich young bache- 



RICH YOUNG BACHELORS, 77 



lors are the curled darlings of the nation, for them 
the mothers plot and the daughters pine ; they are 
the Alpha and Omega of the social world, the 
real centre of the fashionable earth. What a favored 
lot is theirs ! Nothing to do and everything to enjoy. 
Morniag, noon, and night, spring, summer, and win- 
ter, at home and abroad, the butterfly bachelor is 
alike the envy of his own sex and the idol of ours. 

The belle has been from the age of Juvenal derided 
and burlesqued, she has been pronounced frivolous, 
she has been condemned as ridiculous, she has been 
censured as extravagant — we are told that she makes a 
high priest of her milliner and falls down and worships 
the last new bonnet and goes raving mad about French 
heels — that she wastes thousands upon trifles and 
makes a trifle of squandering thousands — that she 
walks against nature and talks against common sense, 
that she has no idea of the value of time nor the 
meaning of responsibility. Too true all this of her. but 
more than this of him. He bows down and worships 
himself, he makes gods of his senses, divinities of his 



73 



RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 



appetites and regards the whole world as the temple 
of his own gratification. He dotes on billiards, gets 
into a craze about the turf. He is the disciple of the 
pool-room, the apostle of the wine-room, the high 
priest of the card-room. He wastes the fruits of a 
year in the follies of a night, a revenue is risked on a 
wager, a competence is staked on a whim, an estate 
is swallowed in an orgie. He sacrifices his constitu- 
tion to cooks, and his digestion to a dinner, and goes 
limping through the world, the best part of his life a 
victim to the gout, the great Nemesis of his indis- 
cretions. 

Now that the belle of the season is extravagant 
there is no denying; William Allen Butler has im- 
mortalized her pecuniary recklessness and dry goods 
desperation in his never dying verse and so long as 
''Nothing to Wear" is read, woman on this head can 
have nothing to say. But, in the name of fair play 
and figures, what is the extravagance of a belle, com- 
pared, item for item, with the extravagance of a bache- 
for. Why money to him is no object, if its object is 



kiCH YOUNG BACHELORS. 79 



himself. There is his yacht, then his establishment 
in town, and his establishment in the country, then 
there are his stables and his equipages, then his club 
expenses are enormous, and his dinner parties and 
his supper parties, and his personal expenses, too, are 
enormous — why his bill for cigars which are a man's 
mere luxury, dwarfs any woman's bill for bonnets, 
which are a woman's absolute necessity. His wine 
account balances any woman's dress account, and as 
for his tailor's bill, only his tailor can imagine. He 
has his costly trifles, too, just like a woman ; he in- 
dulges in jewelry, has 2i penchant for diamonds, culti- 
^'ates a passion for neckties, in which he is as fastidi- 
ous as any girl over her ribbons. He even conde- 
scends to make a specialty of gloves and perfumes 
and bon bons, and is as enthusiastic and expensive in 
canes as any girl in parasols. I tell you the belle 
does not waste one dollar to the bachelor's fifty, his 
extravagance renders her, in comparison, a perfect 
model of economy. 
And he is just as frivolous as she. In the name of 



So RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 

common honesty and every day truth, let us hear no 
more of the pettiness of woman as measured by the 
mightiness of man. Let us cease this cant about the 
immensity of the male and the inanity of the female. 
Woman is too often nonsensical enough — but what is 
to be expected of a creature enveloped in cobwebs 
and educated in sunbeams, who is reared from the 
cradle in a hot house atmosphere, who is persistently 
fed on milk and sweetmeats, and who is studiously 
kept apart from all the lofty ambitions of the world. 
Is it a wonder that without great opportunities her 
life is small ? 

But man has from his birth the world at his feet. 
No cobwebs restrain him — he is not brought up in 
a conservatory — he eats strong meats and drinks 
strong drink — he is allowed plenty of mental air and 
abundance of soul exercise. Yet with all his vast 
opportunities, what has he done ? What use have 
our rich young bachelors made of their vast privil- 
eges ? I will tell you — they have given dinners and 
suppers by the score, they have entertained, at Del- 



RICH YOUNG BACHELORS, 8 1 



monico's, Flora McFlimsey and her chaperone^ they 
have entertained elsewhere Floras who need no 
chaperone, they have flirted, and danced and gallanted, 
they have driven dog carts and four-in-hands, 
they have kept blooded stock and fancy dogs — they 
are critics in cigars, connoisseurs in wine, experts at 
draw-poker — they are as full reservoirs of prattle as 
are their sisters, and are as familiar with the latest 
creme de la creme scandal as are their grand- moth- 
ers. 

Yet I would not be unjust, and it is but fair to say 
that many of our rich young bachelors have done 
much to redeem their class. Among them may be 
found men who have brains enough to be independ- 
ent of their money, as well as money enough to be 
independent of their brains, men who are liberal, or- 
iginal ; they not only own yachts, but sail them ; own 
ideas and develope them. They have brought ail 
manly sports into repute, and polo into popularity; 
they have refined athletic sports into fine arts, they 
have elevated yachting into heroism. They combine 



82 RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 

the elegant with the manly, they unite the Apollo 
with the Hercules. But after all, thirty years of leis- 
ure and millions of money ought to yield something 
more than grace and muscle. 

Taken for all and all, the rich young bachelors of 
our country have not fulfilled their measure, they 
have scarcely even reached the standard of our 
maids. What bachelor has done as much for human- 
ity as Miss Burdett Coutts ? What young bachelor 
of the period has honored human nature like Flor- 
ence Nightingale? 

And in point of morals, the girl of the period, friv- 
olous, extravagant, inane, as she may be, she is a very 
saint, a veritable Madonna, when compared with the 
average young bachelor. True, we hear old women 
over their tea and cards picking at their sex; true, we 
hear young men over their wine and a late cigar des- 
cant on female coquetry and folly, and criticise with 
the air of a Cato the utter senselessness of female 
amusements, and suggestively shrug their shoulders 
at feminine fondness for French novels and masked 



RICH YOUNG BACHELORS. 83 

balls. But the fact stands, the pleasure and amuse- 
ment of the girl of the period are comparatively 
harmless ; follies, probably — dangerous follies, per- 
haps — but only fond follies, evincing rather a vacant 
head than a vicious heart ; whereas the pleasures 
and amusements of the bachelors of the period are 
pleasures and amusements which the woman ot his 
set share not with him. They are either such in 
which woman enters not to elevate; m which there is 
no place or thought for her; or they are such as can 
only be participated in by woman when she has 
ceased to be womanly. And the belle is ever ready 
to leave her follies at his bidding, she ever seeks to 
win him from his graver errors, but he shuts his 
eyes and he closes his ears, and remains a hopeless 
bachelor consecrated to his ivealth, his vices and his 
club. 

The club—2iS our social Hamlet would say, '' Aye ! 
there's the rub, there's the respect that makes bach- 
elorhood of so long a life." 

The modern belle should hate the modern club, it 
is her rival and the enemy of the modern home. 



Chapter XXll. 



MARRIED FLIRTS. 



^UT having paid our respects to the avowedly 
unmistakeably unmarried portion of the male 
community, we now proceed to glance at a large and 
constantly increasing class of the men of the period, 
who for aught we can see, or know, or judge, from 
their relations with woman in society, may be either 
married or single ; these debatable men form an im- 
portant element of modern life. There are scores of 
men in every social set, whom it would require a de- 
tective to discover whether they were husband or 
bachelor. Among these dubious and mysterious 
males I rank the flirts, for flirtation has no sex. I 
know that when most people say ** flirts," they 
mean females, but this is a slander, one of a thou- 
sand, against us poor women. Men profess flirtation, 
they graduate in it, they practice it, they are all the 



MARRIED FLIRTS. 85 



time on the look-out for it. and actively engaged in it. 
And the men flirt quite as freely married as single. 
We have heard constantly from moralists and minis- 
ters of that social monster the " flirting modern wife,'* 
the married female flirt but so far, moralist and 
minister have held their peace concerning that 
rival monstrosity in our social menagerie, the flirt- 
ing husband, the male married flirt. Why ? the latter 
animal certainly exists, and this flirting husband has 
much more license and opportunity than has the 
flirting wife, for she is generally known as married, 
and universally talked about, while he is not talked 
about, for the very simple reason that he is not half 
the time known as married. The male married flirt 
seems to regard marriage as a sort of accident, 
scarcely worth mentioning, a trifle which he will 
not obtrude upon the notice of society. I know of 
a very recent case in what is called " best society 
ol the Metropolis," wherein a husband of some ten 
years standing, with a wife in the country and two 
daughters at boarding school, carried on a flirtation 



86 MARRIED FLIRTS. 



for some six months with an elegant and accom- 
phshed young ladi^ who naturally enough, imagined 
him her suitor, and who told her intimate friends not 
only that she expected him to propose, but that she 
had determined to accept him. He escorted her 
to parties and to theatres, he made himself at 
once her sunlight and her shadow, till one after- 
noon, by the merest accident, she ascertained, to 
her equal surprise and consternation, that her fancied 
suitor was a married man. To do him justice, he had 
never said he was not ; he had never alluded to 
the subject at all ; had, as he himself expressed it, 
drifted into a flirtation. Of course the self deluded 
woman hid her chagrin, and crushed her love, but at 
what cost of misery and tears, only Heaven and her- 
self know. 

Again, 1 have known a husband of the period, who 
was known to be a husband, but who was also a pro- 
nounced and inveterate flirt. He became intimate 
socially with a belle of the season, who flirted with 
him to his gay content ; it was an open game, and all 



MARRIED FLIRTS, 87 



baggage was at the risk of the owner : but ere she 
was herself aware, the woman had flirted into love. 
Love for a married man — she realized her peril, but 
too late. 

"Why did she love him? curious fool be still: 
Is human love the growth of human will?" 

She did not commit herself, she was too proud, too 
pure, nor did he seek to avail himself of his advant- 
age, he was a gentleman, and indeed, to this day, he 
does not know the extent of his own victory — that 
was her secret, and mine as her confidant, but that 
belle is a wreck, a heart wreck, a ship stranded high 
and dry on the shoals of a misplaced but irresistible 
attachment. Ah ! therein lies the curse of these 
married flirtations, these intimacies of women with 
other women's husbands. There is absolutely no 
safety to one woman in the mere fact of a man be- 
longing to another i his being married does not ren- 
der him less fascinating, or less dangerous ; *nay, it 
renders him more so, more dangerous in the assured 
safety of his position, more danger in his knowl- 



88 MARRIED FLIRTS. 



edg^e of woman. He is no flirting fool, no timid, 
bashful woer : he looks you in the face with those 
bright eyes, he lures you with his eloquent tongue, 
that has already uttered vows of love and life, long 
fidelity, to another, he charms you with his win- 
ning ways, which have already won a wife, but 
he is as charming, as entertaining, as fascinating as 
ever, as though there were no other woman on earth 
save you — and if you are susceptible to flattery, if 
3^ou have unfathomed depths of fondness in your 
nature, if you are capable of admiring manhood, 
then I sa}^, beware, you are as likely to love him 
mar-ried as single ; you may not, probably will not, 
commit a crime, but you are on the verge of per- 
petuating a very great folly ; you may not risk your 
reputation, but you are staking your life's peace — 
Again, 1 say beware ; why sport with edged tools ; 
why carry a spark into a powder magazine — especi- 
ally when the major portion of the danger must shared 
by you as a woman. For be assured, if evil comes, 



MARRIED FLIRTS. 89 



it will fall and crush you only — If sin grows out of 
folly, you, not he, will bear the curse. 

Society is unjust in this, as in all things, and the 
victim, IS the woman 



Chapter XXIII. 



THE FAST MAN. 



MOTHER and daughter — a fashionable mother and 
daughter — are strolling up the avenue ; they meet 
a brilliant woman elegantly clad. The two knew this 
third woman once, but they do not know her now — 
she is tine fmtnie comprise — a compromised woman. 
She has been talked about with Charley so and so — 
she has been imprudent, she is then no longer inno- 
cent — and mother and daughter would die at the 
stake rather than notice her. 

And this IS very meet and very right — even the 
woman who is cut dead on the promenade acknowl- 
edges this m her own heart. For the female reputa- 
tion is a delicate plant and needs the purest atmos- 
here. It dies at once m foul air. 

The mother and daughter pass on, inspecting and 
being inspected — bowing and smiling to the right 



THE FAST MAN. 9I 

and left — all at once they come to a halt ; mamma ex- 
tends her hand with empressment ; the daughter 
proffers her fair fingers with a charming blush and 
a pleased smile — they have met one of the favored 
men of their set; he is no other than this Charley so 
and so himself. 

He joins the two in their stroll, mamma is rejoiced 
and the daughter in her soul exults ; for their com- 
panion is a rich man ; he will marry some day, per- 
haps, who knows, he may marry her who sweeps the 
side-walk in her silks and velvet at his side. 

They enjoy the stroll and when they reach their 
home the splendid cultured home ; the ladies insist 
upon Charley entering its honored portals with them. 

Papa receives him cordially, the brothers and 
sisters greet him pleasantly. He is admitted into the 
very heart of home. And who is this Charley so and 
so? He is one of the fast men of the period ; he has 
darkened the lives, and rendered desperate the souls 
of a score of women in his time : he is utterly with- 
out scruple, or heart, or soul, or conscience ; he has 



92 THE FAST MAN. 



faith in neither God nor man ; he drinks and swears, 
and gambles, and steals, and hes, and betrays : he 
never spared a woman j^et and never will — the poor 
creature who was scorned on the promenade by her 
own sex to-day, trusted in him and has cursed her 
folly ; she is only one of the many — how many will 
never be known till the last da3^ 

Yet he is welcomed by our parents ; he pays his 
address to our daughters and is wedded to them. 

Is this meet, and is this right? Does not this fast 
man of this species carry with him a pestilence as 
fatal to female purity as does his victim ? is it only 
the woman who brings with her the foul air ? 

Even when he marries, the same perverse partiality 
the same terrible injustice, is displayed in our social 
treatment of the fast men — for he is as fast when 
married as before. He desolates all homes into 
which he enters ; and yet society pronounces not his 
doom ; there seems to be no doom for such as him ; 
he but fulfills his destiny. 

Yet his own home must be sacred, all the while^ 



THE FAST MAN. 93 



and if his outraged wife driven desperate by neglect, 
likewise steps astray ; ah ! then society pronounces 
its decision ; then for her it has a doom. 

In this respect the "man of the period" does indeed 
differ from the " woman of the period" — in this point> 
and perhaps in this point only, is there no analogy be- 
tween the sexes. 

Is this just — is this consistent with the highest prin- 
ciples of society itself; does not this need reform? 

I will not attempt to justify the woman in this, her 
dire calamity and engulfing dishonor, but I will ap- 
peal to society to know, if whilst it consigns her to 
the uttermost depths of shame and disgrace, if while 
it scouts her from even its outer portal, if it is not 
high time that he, the most to be dreaded enemy of 
society, should not likewise receive at its hands the 
most condign punishment ? As the most delicate 
flower is the first to blight and wither under the 
scorching rays of the sun, and the chill of the frosts 
so are the most gentle, generous and confiding women 
the easiest prey to the wiles of that curse and foul 
plot of society, the seducer. 



94 THE FAST MAN. 

Just here, ladies, is an opportunity for you to vote. U 
vote and vote unanimously, that no father, brother or 
acquaintance shall ever introduce to you any man 
whose honor is stained ; vote to shut him out beyond 
the portals of society, and you will accomplish more 
for women, and for man himself, than by any other 
social revolution. 



Chapter XXIV. 



THE BETTING MAN. 



T,ET me now call your attention to three or four 
types of the men of the period which are speci- 
ally characteristic of the period itself. 

First, let me introduce you to the '^ speculative" 
man, not he of the Col. Sellers order, immortalized by 
Mark Twain and materialized by Raymond, but the 
equally familiar type, whose speculative mania is al- 
was manifested by a bet — in other words, let me make 
you acquainted with the '' betting man'' of the period. 
Now there have been " betting men" at all periods of 
the world's history, but the '' bettor" of to-day is the 
most comprehensive, systematic and thorough which 
the world has ever seen ; the most earnest and 
energetic, yet the least excitable. While the race 
is being won at Saratoga or Long Branch, while 
horse and rider dash and drive along at fever heat 



96 THE BETTING MAN. 

under the fervid sun and amid a cloud of dust- — hun- 
dreds of miles away, in the shade of the New York 
pool rooms, sits the '^great American bettor,'' with his 
cigar in his mouth, and his pencil in his hand, buying 
his horses in the pool, as though he were buying his 
bale of goods. And while the country is agitated 
from the Penobscot to the Pacific with the whirl of a 
Presidential election, while issues of the utmost mag- 
nitude are being decided by the noiseless fall of mil- 
lions of ballots, while the fate of thousands hangs in 
the balance, and the very life of parties is at stake — in 
the very heart of this excitement, himself perfectly 
calm, with his hat on his head and a roll of bills in 
his hand, the " betting man" of the period, stakes his 
pile on candidates and majorities. It is a peculiar 
spectacle, so peculiar, that if we were not all so used 
to it, it would seem almost sublime. 



Chapter XXV. 



BUSINESS MEN. 



J^MERSON, when asked what was the spirit of 
the nineteenth century, replied, with a sneer, 
" the trading spirit.'' Now we must admit the truth 
of the statement, though we deny the justness of 
the sneer. We breathe an atmosphere of barter ; this 
age is an age of bargains. Now commerce itself, 
spite of Emerson and Mills, spite of transcendental 
philosophers and sentimental poets, is a humanizing 
element, and has a tendency to benefit, not to de- 
grade humanity. How it has benefitted these United 
States, history and our own personal experience at- 
test, it is business and the American man of business 
that has made America. Our business men are not 
mere buyers and sellers, mere producers, they have 
ideas, and they develop them ; they are discoverers, 
inventors, patentees, they are the Astors, Goodyears, 



98 BUSINESS MEN. 



Stewarts, Vanderbilts, Harpers, they are the heroes, 
aye, the giants of trade ; they have an energy which, 
like hope, springs eternal in the breast, an enterprise 
which war could not divert, and which even the 
storms of a disputed election could not dismay ; they 
possess a foresight equal to the statesman, and a 
courage to the soldier. 

But, alas, there is a reverse side to our picture, 
and we cannot shut our eyes to it. Our petty trades- 
men are too often but petty knaves ; they do not deal, 
they simply swindle. The grocer has his false meas- 
ure, and his light weight ; the butcher has his tricks 
of trimming; the fruiter has his tricks of topping I 
the coal dealer has his short ton, and the milkman 
has his Croton water. And when we rise to larger 
transactions, although the commercial horizon wid- 
ens, alas, the moral aspect does not always im- 
prove ; the wholesale trader is more ambitious 
than the retail dealer, but he is not more honest ; 
he, too, often ignores alike morality and humanity, 
and acknowledges only interest. Under the capa- 



f 



BUSINESS MEN. 99 



cious pretext of business necessity, or the custom of 
trade, he practices steadily, and energetically, every 
phase of commercial rascality ; he cheats his custom- 
ers himself, or he cheats them by proxy through the 
agencies of clerks, whom he compels to lie for his 
advancement. He cheats his government; he will 
pay for perjuries by the score, uttered in the ear of 
Custom House officials ; he will spend money freely 
for false entries, sham bills of lading, and other de- 
vices in the repertoire of smuggling. A New York 
Custom House official could tell of perjuries, will- 
fully, deliberately made, false oaths subscribed to, 
by men whose public character was supposed to be 
synonymous with truth. 

Or, styling themselves Christian philanthrophists, 
they grind the faces of the poor, paying employees 
starvation wages, meanwhile exacting from them the 
'* pound of flesh '' in the guise of the most exhausting 
labor, working them like dumb driven cattle, twelve 
and even fourteen hours a day. 

Take a palace car with me and permit yourself to 



lOO BUSINESS MEN. 



be whirled along to some factory town ; emerge from 
the luxurious softness of your Pullman, or your 
Wagner, enter the close air and dim light and in- 
cessant whirl of the factory building. See the thm- 
cheeked, weak-eyed, sharp-faced women, who though 
young in years, are old in misery ; women who have 
seen twenty summers, but who never knew one week's 
holidav ; girls who regard the sun as a something 
which shows them the way to their treadmill, and the 
moon as something which lights them back to their 
squalid homes; girls whose world is ** work- work- 
work while the cock is crowing aloof;" girls whose 
backs are benf^ but not with age, whose brows are 
wrinkled, but not with natural cares; whose. nerves 
are shattered, whose spirits are gone, whose hearts 
are broken in the everlasting work and the eternal 
monotony of factory life. Behold groups of little 
children, who have never had a chance to go to 
school ; armies of little children who have never 
owned a toy. 

Or stroll with me along Broadway, or any chief 



BUSINESS MEN. lOI 



avenue of trade. You have had your noon-day nap, 
and you feel refreshed, so just for contrast, step with 
me into one of these huge marts, where, scores upon 
scores of young girls are compelled to ** stand, stand, 
stand," from morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve. 
No rest for such as these, however weary. 

"Stand, stand, stand, till the brain begins to swim, 
Stand, stand, stand, till the eyes grow heavy and dim." 

The doctors tell us that standing is injurious to 
women ; true every woman knows herself how it 
pains her to stand ; but what is pain or what is health 
compared to trade. What if they sigh, as they do 
hourly; what if they suffer, as they do daily ; what 
it they die, as they do yearly, and according to medi- 
cal statistics, literally killed by standing. Are they 
not poor, and are they not paid for it ? Do not our 
largest dealers and Cliristian philanthrophists give 
women from three and as high as seven dollars a 
week for standing in their service eleven hours a 
day — and then these same pious souls, on bright Sab- 
bath mornings, join reverently in the hymn — 

" Stand up for Jesus." 



Chapter XXVI, 



THE PACK HORSE. 



T HAVE heard of the tortures of the martyrs, I 
have seen pictures of the crucified St. Peter, 
and the stoned St. Stephen. I have shuddered at 
the engravings of Auto de Fis, and quivered with 
nervous horror at the deliniated writhings of some 
agonized victim of the inquisition. But there is 
another, a self-constituted, not always Christian, 
yet most genuine and pitiable martyr and sufferer, to 
be seen in our city midst every day. He is called, 
" a man of business." 

You can tell him at once when you see him — he 
has a bent back and a wrinkled brow, and pale and 
shrunken cheek and a lack-lustre eye, he is bald 
years before his time, and seldom smiles ; he works 
harder and longer than the majority of men, and 
never takes a holiday. 

Yet he is not a galley slave, nor a State's prison 
convict, only a rick man ; he has not committed theft 



THE PACK HORSE, lOJ 

nor murder, he is only actively engaged in business ; 
he is a family man, too, but his family do not know 
him, and very naturally, for they rarely ever see him. 
They have learned to look upon him, as he seems to 
look upon himself, as an animal, designed to carry 
gold, and who fulfills his destiny. He carried a 
hundred thousand a few years, the burden bowed 
his back a little ; then he had to carry five hun- 
dred thousand — this burden bowed his back a good 
deal more ; now he bears millions, and his poor old 
back is nearly broken. Pretty soon the poor old 
man, poor with his millions, poor in all that makes 
men rich — the poor, loveless husband, the poor, child- 
less father will die ; die clinging to his golden burden 
to the last, die without having known, perhaps, one 
genuine summer day, in all the winters of his seventy 
years ; and then, ere the breath is out of his body, 
and while his obituaries are being published in the 
papers, the poor old "pack horse'' will be virtually for- 
gotten by all — save his heirs — who will quarrel over 
his corpse for his gold, and disgrace his memory as 
they spend his money. 



Chapter XXVII. 



BROKERS. 



^UT, perhaps, of all modern ninetenth century busi- 
ness, the most thoroughly selfish is that shown 
in that elegant gambling euphoniously called "specu- 
tion." The man who plays cards for a few dollars is 
denominated a ^'gambler," and laws are enacted to 
punish him, but the man who plays " stocks " for the 
hard-earned fortunes of other people, is denominated 
a ''broker," and laws are enacted to protect him. 

The man who cajoles a stranger at keno or plucks 
him at faro, is looked upon with aversion, but the 
man who cajoles his best friend into a ruinous career 
or plucks his widow and orphan of their last dollars 
in a pool, is looked upon with adoration. 

•' Strange such a difference there should be, 
'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee." 

This great stock and bond bandit, simply sits in 
his down-town office, and like a spider, weaves his 



BROKER. 105 



web for the destruction of the golden flies, that buzz 
confidingly about him, playing "ducks and drakes" 
with the hard-earned fortunes of other people. He 
invents lies and sends them to the newspapers ; he 
coins false reports and entrusts them to the tele- 
graph, and lo ! in a few years he becomes a twenty, 
or a fifty, or a hundred millionare, and all the world 
pays court to him, hangs upon his slightest look, 
cherishes his slightest smile. And if out of their ill- 
gotten millions, these vultures, in a fit of remorse, or 
from policy, or hypocrisy, give a few spare hundred 
thousand to a university or a church, or a school, lo ! 
the whole world cries '' hail," off goes the public 
cap, leaders are written on their generosity (?) 
meetings are called to take cognizance of their 
" charity,'' and ministers preach sermons on their 
"piety." And when, after a long life of chicanery 
and rascality and selfishness, the end comes, when 
these great " stock and bond bandits'' are gathered 
to their fathers, lo I the world would fain convince 
itself that these dead misers were devoted Chris- 



io6 



BROKER. 



tians^ and so though they have lived like a " Sir 
Giles Overreach," and undone widows and 
wronged orphans, we are told " they fall asleep in 
Jesus, like a St. Stephen," and though even in their 
last will and testament they have taken no heed of 
the poor brother whom they have seen, we are told 
they are " fully prepared to meet their God," whom 
they have not seen. Ah ! what a ghastly mockery of 
all that is worth living for, and dying for, is this, and 
yet such mockeries are perpetrated every day. 



Chapter XXVIIL 



THE POLITICIAN. 



^ND now for the man one meet every day of the 
week and every hour of the day ; the ^'patriot" of 
the period, the politician, the same thing of course. 
Ah! Dr. Johnston was in the wrong, when he growled 
out his celebrated dictum ; that "patriotism is the last 
refu2"e of a scoundrel," it is not the last, it is the 
very first. 

In these free and enlightened States of America, 
where one man is as good as another and a great 
deal better ; a scoundrel takes to politics as naturally 
as a man takes to a woman, or a woman to a new 
bonnet; when a fellow has nothing else to do, he 
takes to doing the community, and when a fellow has 
nothing else to save, he takes to saving the country. 
He commences saving it by ballot-box stuffing and 
repeating, voting early and voting often and attend- 
ing the primaries. 



I08 THE POLITICIAN. 



Having served his native land in this arduous field 

awhile, he becomes, in course of time, an Alderman, 

. then he makes the most of every fat job that is 

brought before him, and keeps his big fingers in the 

" public pie " till he secures the plums. 

He trades in his influence just as he trades in his 
rum or butter, and makes a good thing out of both ; 
he figures largely in " street openings" and " public 
improvements," two pet names of his for any fat 
jobs that " improve" his own pecuniary prospects or 
" open " for him any avenue of gain. 

As years roll on he waxes fat and gross, plethoric 
in person and purse. Still "saving" his country — God 
bless his patriotic heart, how he does love his coun- 
try to be sure ! how he labors in its service and what 
pay he exacts for his devotion — is not the laborer 
worthy of his hire? He becomes a member of a ring 
of a close corporation which controls millions of the 
public moneys and he takes his pay for controlling it; 
what more natural ? is it not written in Holy Writ 
** he that provideth not for his own family is worse 



THE POLITICIAN. IO9 



than an infidel." His wife now displays her dia- 
monds, his daughters now wear imported dresses and 
his sons now keep their trotters and their — well — the 
country can stand it ; is it not at the mercy of the 
rings. Finally wearied of saving his country in mere- 
ly local politics he takes a wider field of operation 
and is sent to the Capitol as *'State Senator ," here he 
finds lobbying reduced to an exact science and 
bribery elevated into a fine art ; he now masters the 
both and buys votes and sells them admirably ; he 
believes devoutly with Sir Robert Walpole, that 
•* every man has his price," and he has his, or rather 
he has his scale of prices; he charges so much for 
this sort of a bill, and so much more for that sort of 
a bill. A rural measure he does not care so much 
about : for a city ordinance he has more anxiety ; but 
for all R. R. bills and big State jobs of that kind, he 
asks a tremenduous tariff; he finds men all around 
him paying four dollars a day board bill out of a 
stipend of a few dollars a week, and still saving moriey 
enough to buy farms, or camels hair shawls or to wear 



no THE POLITICIAN. 



diamond pins and play draw poker ; so he out Herods 
Herod and makes his fortune out of five thousand 
a year in a single session. 

Still *' saving '' his country, this patriot of ours is 
elected to Congress bv an " appreciative and grateful" 
constituency — several of the most important members 
of whom he carries in his pantaloon's pocket; he 
discovers Washington to be, not only the city of 
magnificent distances, but the city of magnificent jobs; 
the air is full ot Pacific R. R. grants, and hundred 
million dollar subsidies, and into the very thick of 
these our disinterested patriot rushes pell mell, and 
comes out with gold and United States bonds stick- 
ing to him closer than a brother. He has now a mag- 
nificent house in W. street, entertains cabinet ministers 
and their wives, is well received at the White House; 
is steeped in pollution to the very lips and presents 
to the world the amazing yet familiar spectacle of a 
coarse, vulgar, venal yet influential statesman, and 
corrupt yet conspicuous patriot. 

Yet, after all, he is but one phase of the many 
sided '* American country saver," 



THE POLITICIAN, III 



There, for example, is the "talking patriot;'' the 
spouter, the blower ; this man beats any woman in this 
line ; talk as she will she can never talk like him ; he 
is a concentrated gas works ; only his gas gives no 
light , he is always ready to talk for his country and 
he is never ready to do anything else. 

Then there is the " writing patriot," the letter in- 
ditmg, the newspaper patriot ; to him the country is 
a big sheet of paper, on which, he is constantly scrib- 
bling his own name ; nothing delights him like this 
seeing himself in print; he believes in saving his 
country by spreading its printer's ink. 

And lastly there is the " hack politician.," who is 
always m harness ; the man who lives for and by the 
party ; the man who has no idea of a broad liberal 
patriotism, but whose horizon is bounded by the 
resolutions of his caucus ; the man, who if he was a 
Democrat, would not repeat the Lord's prayer had it 
been uttered originally by a Republican ; or who if 
Republican would pay no heed to the ten command- 
ments had Moses been a Democrat. 



112 THE POLITICIAN. 



Such be thy gods, oh Israel ! let us trust that long 
ere the next Centennial these false political pseudo 
patriotic types may be extinct ; extinct as the Ich- 
thyosaurus or the mastodon of the old world ; only 
unlike these ancient monsters may these modern 
politicians leave not a trace behind. 



Chapter XXIX. 



THE MAN OF BRASS. 



^ERHAPS the most characteristic type of the 
period is the *' man of brass." 

This is a brazen age, it has been called the gilded 
age, and with a certain share of truth, but there is 
more brass than gilt about it, after all, or rather it is 
gilded with brass. 

We, of the nineteenth century, have a penchant for 
brass, it is a shining metal and sounding ; there is a 
ring about it. Having passed through the stages of 
self-creation, and self-preservation, and having made 
considerable progress in the stages ot self-improve- 
ment, it now seems as if we had entered upon the 
stage of self-assertion. Having basked in the primi- 
tive purity of our age of gold, having struggled 
through the material and political difficulties which 



114 THE MEN OF BRASS. 

have characterized our age of iron, it now seems as 
if we were being confronted by an age of brass. 

Never since the world w^as created, could brass ac- 
complish as much as now. In art, in science, in lit- 
erature, in politics, in society, in business, in specula- 
tion, and in religion, we feel the influence of brass. 
It is more than experience, it is more than study, it 
is more than talent, it is more than conscience — why 
prate about the definition of genius, brass is the 
genius. Time was when success was conscientiously 
studied and intelligently sought for. Time has been 
when men devoted laborious days and sleepless 
nights arming for the battle of life ; but now they 
rush into the fray with no weapon save brass, and it 
suffices. A man 'comes fresh from the country, from 
driving a stage-coach, or planting potatoes, or feed- 
ing cattle, and he rushes right into the very heart of 
the financial centres of the world, and seizes a rail- 
road or a bank, and scoups up Wall street and the 
Stock Exchange, drives a four-in-hand of horses and 
of judges, controls fleets of steamboats, and flocks oi 



THE MEN OF BRASS. 1 15 

lawyers, and convulses the world with a " Black 
Friday." 

LITERARY MAN OF BRASS. 

Look at the " literary man of brass," the clap-trap 
orator, the plagarizing orator, who without a mo- 
mentary hesitation, or a momentary blush, appro- 
priates Shakspeare or alters Byron, who puts good 
French into bad English, but never says a word to 
his English audiences about the French authorities, 
the ghoul who robs alike the living and the dead. 

SOCIAL MAN OF BRASS. 

See our " social man of brass ;" he has no substantial 
influence, he lacks aUke education and refinement, he 
is from head to foot, in essence as in presence, a vul- 
garian, but take your hat off, for every one else bows 
before him — he is a leader by the right of brass. 
He has asserted himself, therefore the world pros- 
trates itself. 



n6 THE MEN OF BRASS. 



BRAZilN MINISTER OF GOD. 

The man who thinks to pierce the souls of men and 
gain the ear of Heaven with a brazen trumpet. See 
how the clerical charlatan, the consecrated mounte- 
bank turns the pulpit into a Punch and Judy show ; 
how he makes you laugh with his comedy or makes 
you cry with his tragedy ; how he tickles your ears 
but never by any possibility touches your conscience ; 
how he cracks jokes or tell stories, regardless alike of 
the thunders of Mount Sanai, or the still small voice ; 
how he twists language into curious shape to attract 
your attention, not to the Christ but to the clergyman; 
how in the highest calling of humanity — the service 
of the Divinity — he resorts to the lowest arts of the 
demagogue. 

How he trifles with Holy Writ as though it were 
Joe Miller ? How unmistakably he prefers his own ser- 
mons to the sermon on the Mount, and on what terms 
of blasphemous familiarity does he place his infinitis- 
mal self with the Divinity. Ah ! how true it is that 
" fools rush in where angels fear to tread ;" but let us 



THE MEN OF BRASS. II7 



never forget that even in this world, as most assuredly 
in the next, there are those who can and do discrim- 
inate between the false and the true, between the 
genuine metal and the mere amalgam ; between the 
pure gold and the sounding brass and tinkling symbal. 

* -Jf * * -5^ « 4f -x- 

And every day these shams, these mockeries are 
surely but steadily sapping the public and social life, 
polluting the fountains of public morality, aye, and if 
they are permitted to continue will one day terminate 
our national existence ; I speak advisedly, they will 
kill the nation ; I am not an alarmist, but just here I 
would ask my readers with all the solemnity such a 
question demands. Are we Americans not losing ; 
have we not lost that nice sense of personal, mercan- 
tile and national honor which was the special charac- 
teristic and strength of our country in the days of 
that spotless patriot George Washington and that 
stainless merchant John Hancock ? 

Have we not men in our local midst who have 
made, who are known to have made their fortunes by 



8 THE MEN OF BRASS. 



their complicity in the infamous schemes of New- 
York rings — and are not these men courted and 
caressed^ 

Have we not men belonging to our local clubs who 
should by right belong to our local jails? Have we 
not men holding places in our best society, who in a 
just sense of their deserts should only hold places in 
the chain gang ? Have we not swindlers of savings 
banks, who shake hands on equal terms with high- 
toned bankers? 

Have we not defaulters with trust funds who asso- 
ciate with the friends of the very men and women 
with whose trusts they have defaulted ? 

Have we not rogues among us whose social popu- 
larity seems to have no limit and yet who have only 
escaped States prison by pleading the "statute of limi- 
tation?" And in the very Capitol of the nation have 
we not law makers who are law breakers ; have we 
not rulers who transgress every rule of God and 
man? Have we not officials who are bribe-takers and 
public men who are public robbers? Do not sus- 



THE MEN OF BRASS. II9 



pected theives surround the throne? Does not the 
suspicion of fraud at this very moment taint the very 
throne itself? 

I pause for a reply — would to heaven I could hear 
from the heart and lips of my readers an indignant 
" no !*' But, alas ! you cannot hurl my question in my 
teeth, you cannot throw your defiance in my face — 
the newspapers of the day, the telegraph, the public 
correspondent, the private letter, each man and each 
woman's personal knowledge and experience confront 
you and restrain you ; not only you, but me, for 1 am 
an American woman and I love my country, but I 
love it too well to flatter it or to lie to it. The time 
has come when this country needs more than any- 
thing else the truth. This great American Republic 
will never fall in war, battle has but drawn us closer ; 
this great Republic will never fall in political strife — 
strain has but made us stronger ; but history repeats 
itself, and all history shows that national immorality 
precedes national destruction ; the story of a world's 
wickedness followed by a world's deluge is a symbol 



120 THE MEN OF BRASS. 



and a parable. God has made his commandments for 
the new world as for the old, and just as he has 
punished their violation in the old, so will he 
avenge them in the new. In all ages the same moral 
and immoral causes will produce the same result. 
The Grecian Republic ceased to e?vist when the 
virtues of the Greeks ceased to exist, save in story. 
The Roman Republic fell to pieces only when the 
Roman citizens fell from the honor of their forefathers 
and were steeped to the lips in corruption. And 
America, free America, if it mistake license for liberty 
and gives itself over to immorality it will share the 
fate of the nations whose evil example it has followed. 

" 111 fares that land to gathering woes a prey 
When wealth accumulates and men decay.'* 



Chapter XXX. 



CARELESS HUSBANDS. 



^UT let US now pay our respects to the avowedly 
and unmistakably married portion of the male 
community. Let me here introduce to you one type 
of the husband of the period, the "careless husband,'' 
let us fancy that we have been invited to the wedding, 
that we have heard the irrevocable words uttered, 
and that the bride of the period is walking from the 
altar with the man of her choice. Now, however 
frivolous the girl may have been as a belle, rest as- 
sured she is somewhat sobered as a bride ; marriage 
IS a sacrament to every woman, and although she 
may not really love the man she has married, rest as- 
sured she sincerely desires and earnestly resolves, at 
firsts that his life with her shall be happier than it 
could possibly have been without her ; to say nothing 
of her instinct, it is her interest ; she is so much more 



122 CARELESS HUSBANDS. 

dependent upon him than he is upon her ; as a mere 
matter of policy she will strive to please him — but he 
is careless and selfish — most men are as society is, they 
could scarcely be otherwise ; when the hiatus of the 
honeymoon is passed, when the bridal trip has ended, 
he sinks down into the old ruts of his habits and 
wraps the elegant robes of his selfishness about him; 
he does not weary of his wife, perhaps, and being a 
gentleman he does not ill treat her, he simply ignores 
her ; he goes his separate ways, and throwing him- 
self into life leaves her to her loneliness ; she endures 
the empty house called by a euphonious mockery '' a 
home ;" she looks out of the windows alone ; she plays 
her piano to herself; she sits and thinks about herself 
and him, and wonders where he is and longs for him 
— then learns to do without him and finally learns to 
imitate him ; he has his separate world apart from 
her ; she makes a separate world apart from him and 
thus the united pair lead disunited lives ; he has his 
separate estabUshment, his servants, who know more 
of their master's business than does their mistress ; 



CARELESS HUSBANDS. I23 



he has his separate horses and carriages which he 
drives himself but rarely with his wife beside him ; 
he has also his separate suite of rooms, very often his 
wife residing in the country while he resides in town, 
even when they sleep beneath the same roof they 
sleep apart; they always breakfast apart and rarely 
ever dine together ; he has his club dinners, his di- 
rector's dmners and his judge's dinners, to say 
nothing of the many named and nameless suppers. 
All this is bad and bad enough but alas ! thus " bad 
begins and worse remains behind ;" he has also 
his separate '^ love " and heaven help her, she in time 
learns to imitate him in this also — having lived apart 
they love apart ; may heaven have mercy upon her 
for her world will show no mercy ; in time he will 
have his eyes open to her as she has long, long since 
had her eyes opened to him ; pretty soon he will dis- 
cover all, then there will be a scandal, a tragedy per- 
haps, and then a loud outcry about a '-husband's in- 
jured honor,'' and another text for another tirade 
against the *' wife of the period," 



124 CARELESS HUSBANDS. 



Yet this ruined wife ; this blasted home of the period, 
what is it but the legitimate results of the carelessness 
of the husband of the period. And this carelessness 
IS in itself, when thoughtfully considered, as unman- 
like as it is criminal. For men when they are at their 
best, when they are putting their manhood to the 
test and stakingallon what they consider "worth the 
hazard '' are never careless. In science, in art, in 
poetry, in philosophy, in material life, in all that can 
dignify the body, delight the mind and elevate the 
soul, man, earnest man has ever been found, the sage 
the author, the inventor and the hero. Nor is the 
man of period one whit inferior to the man of the past, 
regard what man nmeteenth century man has accom- 
plished — he surrenders all his will, brain and devotion 
to what he regards ''his world," and see what mag- 
nificent results follow his self devotion. 
***** * * * 

It is piercing cold the wind howls through the 
rigging all night and the night is six months long ; 



CARELESS HUSBANDS. 125 



there is no water, it is all ice ; the very ship is frozen, 
it is a world without a sun; it is the region of the 
pole ; but man — earnest man — is here, freezing in the 
cause of science. 

It is hot, the sun pours down its vertical rays, 
which even the lion dreads and flees from to his 
jungle, but man, earnest man is here toiling in the 
cause of civilization. 

It is a far-off isle in the Pacific, beautiful as the 
Garden of Eden, but deadly as the Upas tree. The 
spicy breezes blow softly and every prospect pleases, 
but the smiling land and the placid waters are accurst 
— they are the haunts of the monster and the canni- 
bal, yet man, the missionary, is here dying in the 
cause of Christianity. 

It is a desolate tract, separating the mighty East 
from the mighty West, a desert of a tract full of vast 
valleys and vaster mountains, but neither can dis- 
hearten man, earnest man — he is here, tunneling 
the mountains, bridging the chasms, uniting the west 
to east, marrying them in eternal bonds of steam 
and electricity. 



126 CARELESS HUSBANDS. 



It is midnight, and the woman sleeps, dreaming o^ 
pleasures of the morrow. But the man is pouring 
over the midnight lamp in his solitary chamber. 
He is perchance a poet, 

" And through long days of labor 
And nights devoid of ease. 
He hears in his soul the music 
Of wonderful melodies." 

Or he is a Bulwer, and is evolving a ** Zavoni," or 
he is a Darwin, or a Spencer, or a Stuart Mills. 

Or perchance he is a Gladstone, or a Bismarck, or 
a Stanton, or a Seward. While the nation sleeps he 
is thinking for the nation. He is pondering over the 
problem whose solution will save a race, or deciding 
a question whose answer will be impressed on his- 
tory forever. 

Or his country is in peril, and looks to him in its 
extremity — his native land lies bleeding, and calls 
aloud to him for help ; on the instant the man is 
transformed into the soldier, and the soldier is glori- 
fied into the hero ; he heeds not danger, he heeds 
not pain, and never thinks of death ; he seizes his 



CARELESS HUSBANDS. 12/ * 



sword and his standard and rushes into the fray — 
fights like mad Anthony Wayne, or falls like 
Warren. 

And in life, as in death, these men, these patriots, 
warriors, merchants, missionaries, authors, invent- 
ors, discoverers, are in earnest. In earnest — in these 
two words lies all the secret, in these two brief 
words IS hidden all the mystery of their success. 

Oh ! what husbands there would be in this world 
of ours, if husbands were in earnest in home happi- 
ness and perfections. Oh ! wh^t fathers we would 
have, what brothers and what lovers ; and what 
happy homes there would be on this earth of ours 
\\ men were only as earnest seekers after domestic 
as material prosperity. 

Oh ! would to Heaven men were half as earnest 
and devoted to their world of home as they are to 
that " home of theirs " they call the world. 

But Ah ! gentlemen, I know that you are smiling 
inwardly, for have I not, woman-like, forgotten my 
text, which was not the glories, but the follies of 



128 CARELESS HUSBANDS. 

your sex, did I not warn you that I had come to 
chant your miserere, and have I not really been sing- 
ing your laudamus I Nay, nay, I am keeping faith, 
after all, for did I not tell you I appreciated your 
excellencies, and I have but shown my apprecia- 
tion. 



Chapter XXXI. 



MARRIED TYRANTS. 



^UT let me now return to the less congenial but 
more essential aspect of my theme, and let me 
hold my truthful mirror before orle of the most 
repulsive types which disgrace this male humanity 
of yours, this humanity at once so bright, and yet 
so low. Let me show you as he is, the horrid 
image of the '^ married tyrant.'* The married tyrant, 
how shall I describe him, what words have 1, a 
woman, to pillory such a man. 

The common idea of the married tyrant is as coarse 
as it is simple ; he is a foul-mouthed brute, he curses 
his wife and beats her, he makes the air blue and her 
e^xs black. 

Now there is such a type as this ; shame be it such 
brutes as this abound at home and abroad, not only 
in low life, but in so-called high, that lords and 



130 MARRIED TYRANTS. 



gentlemen — Heaven save the mark — physically mal- 
treat their wives, and curse and kick them, is not 
only a social mystery, but a disgraceful fact. A fact 
revealed every now and then in our English and 
American courts of justice, a fact which makes us 
sneer at our civilization and doubt our Christianity. 
But the worst tyrants are not of this description ; 
they do not break the head, but the spirit ; they do 
not bruise the body, but the heart. This sort of 
a tyrant is almost always a *' most respectable man,'' 
he pays his just debts and his church dues; he is a 
model in the world at large, but in the world at 
home, what is he ? Perhaps jealous ; in this case his 
Christian wife has less freedom than a Turkish 
slave. 



JEALOUS TYRANTS. 



There is no woman who needs more sympathy 
than the married slave of a jealous despot, and 
these despots are as numerous in America as in 
Turkey ; they go to church quite as often as they 



MARRIED TYRANTS. I3I 



go to mosque ; the one employs Eunichs, the other 
employs spies ; the one resorts to the cord, the sack, 
and the Bospherous, the other util-izes a foul sus- 
picion, a slander, or some other torture of civilized 
life. But the result to the female victim is the same — 
she is watched and she is spied, her looks are seen 
only through the mists of passion and prejudice, her 
trifles, light as air, are to his fancy, hoary with guilt, 
all the joy is banished from her life, and though in- 
nocent as a lamb, she is immolated on the altar of 
his doubt. Talk of the small suspicions of a jealous 
woman, what are they to the infinitismal littleness 
and mean cruelties of a jealous man. A woman 
has always this excuse for her jealousy, she loves 
the man she watches, she adores the creature she 
torments, and her jealousy is but an adjunct of her 
passion. But a man is ofte-n jealous of a woman for 
whom he does not care a whit, he torments a crea- 
ture for whom he does not pretend any fondness ; 
he makes a martyr of her through his selfishness; 
she is his, just as a dog is his, or a horse is his, and 



132 MARRIED TYRANTS. 

not another's, she belongs to him and not to some 
other man, and is his property ; she must endure his 
wbi'ms, she must be subject to his caprices, she must 
be the submissive slave to his irresponsible whims — he 
meanwhile, lord of creation that he is ; be free as air, 
free to smile upon and be smiled upon by any other 
woman, while she, this nineteenth century Christian 
slave, must hide her face and hide her heart, re- 
strain alike her body and her spirits — Ah ! Byron 
wrote and a world has read, "a prisoner of Chillon,'' 
but there are thousands of mute, meek-eyed, broken- 
hearted prisoners, who need a Byron's eloquence in 
their case. 

Would that I had the gift of tongue, that from 
the depth of an indignant heart, I could paint the 
agonies endured by these wedded wives of jealous 
tyrants, then would the world read and shudder. 
Ah ! it is well as Dickens says, '' there is another 
world, a world that sets this right." 



MARRIED TYRANTS. 1 33 



PHILOSOPHIC TYRANT. 

Or he may be of a different type ; perhaps his 
selfishness ma}^ exhibit itself in another phase — he 
is a philosopher foresooth, a philosopher who imag- 
ines his way to the stars impeded by a petticoat. 
Such a man has long ago discovered that nat.ire 
abhors a vacuum, so to keep the universe from being 
empty, he fills it with himself. He sees himself in 
the sun, moon, and stars, he finds himself in the 
secondary and tertiary strata, he looks at himself in 
history, aye, he even insinuates himself into the- 
ology, or studies himself and calls himself " science 
and art." And thus absorbed wholly in self-contem- 
plation, he ignores wholly the wife, the poor, patient 
little woman whom he married years ago, and wh<j 
ever since he married her, has been kept so busy 
attending upon him, she has had no tim-e to attend 
to anything else. While he has been calculating the 
transit of Venus, she has been calculating on the com- 
ing of the milkman, while he has been Darwinizing, she 
has been darning. He keeps company with John Stuart 



134 MARRIED TYRANTS. 



Mills and Herbert Spencer, she keeps company with 
the house-maid, the nursery maid, and the cook. 
He looks forward to a lecture by Huxley, or a dis- 
cussion at the Liberal Club, she looks forward to the 
coming ot the butcher boy and the apothecary. 
How then can ths poor faithful drudge ever be able 
to comprehend his immensity. How m the name oi 
all that is reasonable, will this apostle of his shirt 
collars, and his darned socks, this High Priest of his 
boiled mutton and his mince pies ever find oppor- 
tunity to penetrate the arcana of his expansive brain, 
or enter the "Holy of Holies" of his lofty soul. Ah ! 
men are seldom just, not even when they are phil- 
osophers, nor grateful, not even when they are 
sages. 

1 knew a woman once who married one of these 
*' philosophers ;" he was always sighing for apprecia- 
tion and yearning for a congenial soul, and she de- 
termined to give him what he sighed for — but the 
moment he got it, man-like, he didn't want it ; indeed 
he resented it, as a "violation of woman's sphere, ' 



MARRIED TYRANTS. 135 

an 'Mmpertinent intrusion on the field of man." He 
came home one night, this philosopher who *'sighed'' 
for a congenial soul, and found his wife deep in the 
study of Grecian history, but the philosopher was 
hungry, and asked for his dmner. '\Oh ! I don't 
know anything about the dinner, I suppose Bridget 
is attending to that; it will be ready sometime, no 
doubt," replied the would-be congenial spirit ; ^* but, 
dearest, I can tell you all about Greece, let us dis- 
cuss together Alcibiades.'' And what think you, did 
the philosopher? Why of course he caught the wife of 
his bosom, the would-be congenial partner of his 
mind, to his enraptured arms, and hand in hand the 
pair wandered over the classic fields of Greece — not 
a bit of it, the philosopher au.libly " confounded Al- 
cibiades," and went down to the kitchen murmur- 
ing something about " beefsteak and onions, and a 
woman's sphere is home." 

PETTY TYRANTS. 

Or he may be the petty tyrant, the Mogul of trifles, 
the Czar of fault-finders. May Heaven, in infinite 



136 MARRIED TYRANTS. 



mercy, pity the woes of the wife of such a man. 
I have stood at the grave of his victim, I have 
heard the clods fall on the coffin of the woman 
who had married and died of a petty tyrant. " He 
had never spoken a harsh word'' to her, so the neigh- 
bors said ; he had been a " model of affectionate ten- 
derness," so the minister said ; he had been a *^ devo- 
ted husband,'' so the newspapers said; yet he had mur- 
dered his wife, so 1 say, and so will He who know- 
eth and judgeth all things, say one day. Poor, 
silent sufferer, pooruncanonized martyr— she had been 
found fault with, and misunderstood from the first 
day of married existence to the last. If she smiled, 
which was but seldom, she was carped at as " frivo- 
lous ;'' if she wept when, through his unkindness she 
could not restrain her tears, she was scolded as "dis- 
mal." Her slightest action was the text for a dis- 
course, her merest whim furnished the text for a 
lecture, she was persistently found fault with, and if 
she, woman-like, sought to caress him with kind- 
ness, if she playfully, for a moment, fondled him, or 



MARRIED TYRANTS. 1 37 



timidly and tenderly sought to propitiate him, why, 
her tenderness was repulsed, her caresses were re- 
quited by tirades. At last she died, literally 
blamed into her coffin, literally scolded into her 
grave, she died twenty years before her time, died 
a slow death, to which the wild beasts at Ephesus 
were mercy, died of heart-hunger, of misapprecia- 
tion and soul starvation, as thousands of women are 
dying every day — died of petty tyranny. 



Chapter XXXII 

SOME women's husbands. 

^UT there are other species of the genus husband 
yet to be considered — all married men are not 
tyrants, some are '^ciphers." 

Thus there are a class of men who can only be 
described as " some woman's husband." A member of 
this class is merely known as having married some 
great actress or singer or some woman in private life 
in some way greater than himself. 

He is pomted out in society as " Mrs. Dash's hus- 
band " or the husband of " Madam Million's ;'' he is 
alluded to as "the fellow'' who wedded the great 
heiress "Miss Cash," or the "man'' who married the 
rich widow " Mrs. Van Diamondeer." He shines en- 
tirely by reflected light, he has no other title of 
nobility than that afforded him by his marriage certifi- 
cate. Now it sometimes happens that some " woman's 



SOME WOMEN*S HUSBANDS. 1 39 

husband " is really to be pittied ; he is a clever fellow, 
more clever than his more ambitious wife, more 
modest, oh ! these are modest men. He is retiring 
while she is rampant ; in this case, and I have known 
of such, the male element is taxed without being 
represented and if he were to rebel he would be justi- 
fied in his secession. But as a rule " some woman's 
husband is only to be despised as a two legged male 
animal who literally lived off his wife's brains, hav- 
ing no brains of his own to speak of; I have known 
such creatures who by some mistake wore pantaloons, 
who by some strange freak of nature sported mus- 
taches, they walked erect too and altogether looked so 
much like men that until you knew them they might 
be mistaken for them. 

They were fed like dogs with the crumbs which 
fell from their wife and mistress' table, and like some 
dogs some of them bit the hand that fed them. I 
know a somebody's husband once who beat his some- 
body and I have known scores of them who were all 
their lives loads upon the backs of the unprotected fe- 
males zuho had undertaken to support them. 



Chapter XXXI 1 1. 



HENPECKED HUSBANDS. 



'M'OW some woman's husband is at least paid for 
his obscurity and though surpassed is at least 
supported by his wife, but what shall we say of those 
who maintain women who make them ridiculous ; I 
allude to a class of men known to a satirical world as 
*' henpecked." 

Now I have for sometime studied the natural history 
of the "henpecked man" and have discovered several 
points in reference to the animal. As a rule the 
" henpecked " is large and the " pecking hen" is small ; 
of course, the larger he is and the smaller she is, the 
more ridiculous, the result. Perhaps, in all this world 
the spectacle presented of a little woman brow beat- 
ing and tongue lashing a man who could pick her up 
and throw her out of the window most forcibly illus- 
trates the triumph of mind over matter. Now it 



HENPECKED HUSBANDS. I4I 



often happens that a henpecked man, though very 
small in his wife's eyes is looked up to by the world 
as a great man. Thus Milton was hen-pecked, no 
wonder that he could write " Paradise Lost." Soc- 
rates was henpecked, so thoroughly henpecked that 
he became the greatest philosopher of antiquity, and 
swallowed his hemlock without a protest, some hint 
that he took it with pleasure — it is astonishing with 
what calmness the henpecked man can die. 

Generally 1 have found that henpecked men, are 
men more than ordinarily susceptible to female in- 
fluence — and who get in their own families all the 
female influence they want — and who would be ladies* 
men, too, if their wives would let them. 

I have also found, too, that " henpecked men" as a 
rule, truly love their wives, domestic love seems in 
these cases to be a measure containing several " pecks'* 
to the bushel. 

Is there not a hint in this to women ? Let me tell 
my married sisters a true story ; Once upon a time 
there was a meek submissive little wife, who imag- 



142 HENPECKED HUSBANDS. 

ined it to be her duty to do exactly what her husband 
told her; of course he told her to *'stay at home and 
believe in him ;" and she staid there while he — he 
was out, the better part of every day and more than 
half the night. She smiled on him however, just as 
sweetly when he disturbed her after midnight as 
when he departed in the morning; so as he told 
his bachelor friends, " he had a soft thing of it ;" and 
she was " soft," very. But one day, this confection- 
ery sort of a wife met a married friend who had all 
tlie *' confectionery nonsense" driven out of her long 
ago, and the two women put their heads together and 
the elder wife gave the younger a bit uf advice which 
the latter followed. 

That night when he^ lord and master (he was a 
lawyer), returned from the judge's dinner — he was 
always supping with the bar and dining with the 
bench — she did not receive him with her stereo- 
typed smile, but in the forcible language of Sitting 
Bull "she went for his scalp." He did not sleep a 
wink that night and he did not keep an appointment 



HENPECKED HUSBANDS. 143 



he had made with some lawyer friends (?) for the 
following evening ; but his wife followed up her ad- 
vantage, she had learned the '' man-power '' of a 
woman's tongue and she kept her engines going day 
and night till her husband sank exhausted with his 
vain attempts to stop her "talkmg-team." 

He was henceforward an altered man. And herein 
lies the special moral of my story ; he was not only 
conquered but devoted ; he loves his wife more than 
ever, he only endured her while he ruled her, but 
now he positively adores her ; he don't like her to be 
out of his sight (though to tell the truth she never 
for a moment loses sight of him), and he kisses her a 
dozen times a day, and caWs her all sorts of pet names ; 
it used to be; "old woman," or "Mar}'," and sometimes 
*' damn rae, my dear" or "go to the devil, my love,\ 
but now she is his '' ducky darling " and " tootsy 
wootsy," and '* star of my heart ;" why you would 
not know the man, and what is more, his chums don't 
know him ; he represents all the confectionery in that 
establishment now. Such is the power of a woman's 



44 HENPECKED HUSBANDS. 



tongue. A woman's tongue, I linger over those three 
words, for they are full of meaning, oh ! if women 
only knew how much of meaning there is in them. 
Why a woman's tongue when properly used by a 
woman who understands it, is the most terrific 
weapon in the universe, without it she were mdeed 
man's slave, defenceless; with it she is his equal, his 
equal did I say, she is his superior and in every com- 
bat with him must come out the victor ; armed with 
it man, mere man, shrinks back before her, stunned, 
terrified, deafened. The warrior will fiy from the 
scold : the hero will tremble at the shrew ; Xantippe 
could have vanquished Achilfes as easily as he 
snubbed Socrates. Ah ! nature never leaves her 
children wholly unprovided for, wholly at the mercy 
of each other. The unobtrusive porcupine has his 
quill ; the creeping snake has his poison, even the 
rose has its thorn, and woman, Heaven be praised, has 
her tongue. 

Ah I mv poor married sisters, when you are tempt- 
ed to despondency and submission, trust in provi- 



HENPECKED HUSBANDS. I45 

dence, and use your tongue and my word for it prov- 
idence will not forsake you. 

But woman's fun apart — to the henpecked I would 
say, ** be a man " women adore heroes and despise 
cowards ; as long as you are henpecked, you will be 
nothing but a pathetic blunder ; you will deserve pity 
but you will never get any. Like Mohammed's coffin 
you will be suspended between heaven and earth and 
a long way off from either; your days will be pen- 
ance and your nights purgatory, and like St. Anthony, 
you will be tempted by the devil , only the torments 
of the Saint were but for awhile, but the torture of 
the henpecked is eternal. 



Chapter XXXIV. 



FATHERS. 



Proceeding another step in our survey, let us 
look at the "worldly husband" of the period when 
he becomec a father, that is, if he suffers himself to be- 
come a father; for although we hear and read a 
great deal about the disinclination of the " worldly 
women" of the period to become mothers, there could 
be quite as much said concerning the aversion of the 
''men of the period" to become fathers. There are men 
who hate the expense and bother of children quite 
as much as fashionable women detest the inconven- 
ience and the responsibility. The ancient Patriarchs 
find few imitators among the modern " worldly hus- 
bands." 

And such men, when fathers, what are they to their 
children, what does he know of or do for them ? 



1 



FATHERS. 147 



True, he pays the doctor's bill and the nurses, but 
just as he pays the butcher's and the baker's, as a 
mere item of household expense, no less, no more. 
How often does he visit the nursery, how often does 
he fondle his babes, what does he know or care of 
their little worlds and habits, what does he care for 
their little pranks and prattle ? 

The careless, frivolous, fashionable mother of the 
period has been abused, satirized, held up to ridicule, 
but who has satirized, as he deserves, the fashionable, 
dissipated, worldly father ? Say what satirists will, 
I tell you in all seriousness, and men themselves must 
confess it, that from her very nature the most frivo- 
lous mother must of necessity do more for and be 
more with her children than their father. 

Who sees to the little ones every morn and night, 
who tends to their colds and attends to their flannels, 
who takes care that the darlings are fed and fostered ? 
with all her faults, their mother. He leaves his little 
ones to themselves, he is so engaged in business and 
politics, or pleasures, that he scarcely remembers that 



148 FATHERS. 



he has children. And as his sons grow up to man- 
hood, he it is who instills into their minds worldly 
principles, who both by precept and example renders 
them shrewd and selfish. He it is who teaches them 
that money is the one thing needful, who leads them 
from his own conduct irresistibly to infer that mor- 
ality is merely a conventionality and religion a senti- 
mentality. He it is who instructs them in the code 
of the new Gospel, whose fundamental maxim is '^do 
others as they will certainly do you." And as his 
daughters mature into womanhood he abandons them 
to their own devices, he allows them to drift among 
shoals and quicksands of society without a chart and 
without a pilot. He regards them as merely the or- 
naments and encumbrances of his station, he consid- 
ers he has done his duty to them when he has settled 
with their dressmaker. He allows them to associate 
with men as reckless and as unscrupulous as himself. 
He instructs them that matrimony is a mere "matter of 
money," that wealth '^covers a multitude of sins," and 
that poverty is the only crime that cannot be for- 



FATHERS. 149 



given. Ah ! believe me, the worldly mother of the 
period represents a heart that is too much the world's 
— but the worldly father represents a world that has 
no heart. 



Chapter XXXV. 

THE CARELESS FATHER 

The ^'careless father" of the period is really one of 
the characteristic curiosities of the time. His 
carelessness has in it something astounding-. He 
IS careful in his business, he knows every detail of 
his commercial operations. He can tell you just what 
his correspondent in Rio Janeiro is doing. He is 
thoroughly posted as to what his agent in Hong 
Kong is doing, but if you were to ask him by chance 
what his son in New York is doing, you would puz- 
zle him. He is, too, rather suspicious — he watches 
everybody with whom he has or is liable to have any 
pecuniary relations — he knows the habits and the 
haunts of his confidential clerks just as he knows the 
mercantile standing and the monetary resources of 
his chief customers, but he does not know the hab- 
its and the haunts or the associations of his only son 



THE CARELESS FATHER. 151 

or daughter. He understands the ins and outs of 
finance, but he does not understand the ins and outs 
of his own children. And the strangest point about 
this carelessness is that it does not arise from indiffer- 
ence — no, the "careless father" often profoundly loves 
the children of whom he is so profoundly ignorant. 
A story is told of a rich man who lately retired 
from business. A friend remonstrated with him on 
his course and told him that he would regret the 
step. Why " you will have nothing to occupy your 
mind," said the friend. '' You mistake,'' said the re- 
tiring millionaire, " I will have plenty to do." 
'* What will you do replied the astonished friend ?" 
Oh ! was the reply, " I will make the acquaintance of 
my own family." And he was right — he had had 
time enough to make money but he had not had time 
to know the very people for whom he made it. And 
strange as it may sound, it is as true as gospel and 
Josh Billings — that no man is farther from his own 
children than their own father. 



152 THE CARELESS FATHER. 



MARTYR FATHER. 

Oh, the father of the period is of another type, he 
toils and slaves his life out in the service of the dol- 
lar, and pours his earnings on his dear ones, burying 
all that is best of them beneath a golden shower, but 
meanwhile keeping them, like the fairies of the ballet, 
spite their gauze and spangles, utterly without pro- 
tection against the storms of life — hopeless, and help- 
less, until at last, in the midst of the golden glory, he 
dies or fails, and then, too late, those whom he has 
loved '' not wisely but too well " learn the great 
meaning of that small word '' life,'' and in many a 
cold and hungry hour regret his mistake and deplore 
his folly while they reverence the memory of their 
'^martyr father." 



Chapter XXXVI, 



THE COMING MAN. 



^ND now that I have presented to your view this pan- 
orama of the "men of the period," allow me a final 
word in reference to my exhibition. I have not shown 
you any monstrosities, all my men are real, if 1 have 
not deified them, I have not defiled them ; I have kept 
my word, I have shown them to you as they are, I 
should like to have revealed them to you as they 
ought to be, but alas ! I could not, I should not know 
where to find my types. But let us not despair, this 
is an age of improvement and this improvement may 
in the course of time extend to men. We are perfect- 
ing horses, perhaps some day we may perfect human- 
ity. We are growing tired of steam and are dream- 
ing of ballooning, we are weary of our Cunarders, 
and are contemplating Air Ships. 

We are satiated with '' electric signals" and are pre- 
paring to talk by telegraph. The time is coming 
153 



54 THE COMING MAN. 



when a man's mother-in-law will be able to scold him 
at a thousand miles distant in her own natural voice> 
or, when a wife in New York can step up to the tele- 
phone and quietly ask her husband in Paris for ''a new 
bonnet." So doubtless some fine day, naUire will take 
it into her head to outdo her rival science and will, 
after any amount of crowing, give to the world a " per- 
fect man." What a glorious day that will be — would 
that I were a combination of Homer, and Byron, and 
Tupper, and Darwin, that I might adequately des- 
cribe this superb creation, this perfection of his spe- 
cies, this *' coming man." 

But I see a smile rippling over the faces of my 
readers, and I understand its meaning. You wonder, 
when this " perfection" of his species, seeks to marry 
what earthly woman he will find worthy to marry 
him — for of course you argue, the ^' ideal woer" must 
woe the ''ideal mistress," the "perfect husband'' must 
win a "perfect wife" — and you are right, and herein lies 
the whole pith of the discourse— rest easy on this point, 
when he is the rule, she will not be the exception. 



THE COMING MAN. I 55 

Woman is but reflected man, he is the mirror in 
which she sees herself, the image may be somewhat 
modified, distorted if you will, by the medium of sex 
but it is the reflected image after all, as — 

Sunshine broken in the rill 

Though turned aside is sunshine still. 

It is to be pleasing in his eyes that she is wise or 
foolish, it is her nature to desire him and to do and 
be what she interprets he desires. Her virtues are 
to charm his soul, her very vices are to bewitch his 
senses, she is ever3^thing for him, she is all things for 
the man she loves. So when man is perfect, woman 
will reflect his perfection. When men no longer de- 
ceive, woman will be no longer false. When man no 
longer dyes his mustache, woman will no longer 
paint her cheeks. When he ceases to prefer limbs to 
brains woman will cease to pad. When he prefers 
the mind to the bod}^, women will cultivate the mind. 
When man is wholly honest, woman will be wholly 
true. When this ideal lover is ready to become a 
bridegroom, my word for it, he will find an ideal 



156 THE COMING MAN. 

woman ready to be his bride — demand will create a 
supply in morals as in merchandise. 

Heaven never sends a soul into this world but it 
sends some other soul to be its mate, and when the 
^* Adam" of faultless man is born, about that time will 
be created the '' Eve'* of perfect woman. 

THE END. 



DE^BY-fBE(§iFKE^^'-fPUBIiIC?IiFI0NP. 

THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA, 

AND 

IN MEMORIAM 

SAMUEL F. B. MORSE and WILLIAM ORTON. 

By JAMES D. REID. 

Royal Octavo. 900 pp. 16 Portraits on Steel. Numerous 
Engravings on Wood. Cloth, $6.00. 

JOHN HABBERTON'S LAST AND BEST BOOK, 

"SOME FOLKS.'' 

I vol. 8vo, 500 pp. Handsomely Illustrated. Cloth, $2,.oo. 



HOW WE RAISED 

o xj i=L IB ^^ IB ^sr. 

By JEROME WALKER, M.D. 
Physician to Sheltering Arms Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Square i2mo, 200pp. Cloth, ^i.oo. 



RAUDOM CASTS, 

OR 

ODDS AND ENDS FROM AN ANGLER'S NOTE BOOK. 

By E. M. E. 

i2mo, 175 pp. 50 cents. 



A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS 

By MRS. HUGH L. BRINKLEY. 

l2mo, 156 pp. 50 cents. 

Any volume in the above list forwarded, postage paid, 
to any address on receipt of the price . 

DERBY BROTHERS, Publishers, 

NEW^ YORK. 












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